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§ 


MY  GARDEN 
Series.  Edited  by 
R.  Hooper  Pearson, 
Managing  Editor, 

Gardeners1 

Chronicle. 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


Uniform  Volumes  in  Preparation. 


MY  GARDEN    IN    SUMMER. 

MY  GARDEN  IN  AUTUMN 
AND  WINTER. 


2088069 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

By  E.  A.  Bowles,  M.A. 


New  York 
Dodge  Publishing  Company 

214-220  East  23rd  Street 


TO 

MY  FATHER 
HENRY  C.   B.   BOWLES 

WHO   HAS   SO    KINDLY   AND   PATIENTLY  ALLOWED 
TO   EXPERIMENT  WITH   HIS    GARDEN    FOP 
THE   LAST   TWENTY-FIVE   YEARS 


PREFACE 

IT  is  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege  to  be  asked  to  write  about 
a  real  garden.  There  are  nowadays  so  many  gardeners 
that  gardens  are  growing  every  year  more  rare.  Every 
one  must  have  their  "  rock-work,"  and  the  very  rich  are 
out  to  purchase  the  glories  of  the  Alps  at  so  much  a 
yard — with  all  the  more  contentment  if  the  price  be  heavy, 
so  that  their  munificence  may  be  the  more  admired. 
Passion  for  display  appears  the  ruling  note  in  English 
horticulture  of  every  kind  and  in  every  period :  we  want 
a  show.  It  is  now  not  so  very  long  since  carpet-bedding 
went  out  of  fashion  with  a  roar  of  contemptuous  execra- 
tion ;  and  for  a  short  period  we  were  all  for  a  return  to 
what  we  spoke  of  as  "  Nature,"  but  what  was  merely 
wobbly  anarchy  reduced  to  a  high  art.  But  in  those 
days  at  least  the  rock  garden  was  a  place  of  plants,  and 
if  such  a  thing  existed  in  one's  ground  at  all,  it  was  not 
a  mere  dog's  grave  to  trail  Nasturtiums  over,  but  a  fabric 
framed  because  its  owner  really  wanted  to  do  his  best  for 
Dianthus  glacialis  or  Campanula  pulla.  But  now  the  accursed 
thing  is  once  more  rearing  its  head,  and  carpet-bedding  is 
bursting  up  to  life  again  in  the  midst  of  the  very  rock 
garden  itself,  of  all  places  impermissible  and  improbable. 
For  the  rich  must  have  their  money's  worth  in  show ; 
culture  will  not  give  it  them,  nor  rarity,  nor  interest  of 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

the  plants  themselves :  better  a  hundred  yards  of  Arabis 
than  half  a  dozen  vernal  Gentians.  So  now  their  vast 
rock-works  are  arranged  like  the  pattern  of  a  pavement : 
here  is  a  large  triangle  filled  neatly  with  a  thousand  plants 
of  Alyssum  saxatile,  neatly  spaced  like  bedded  Stocks,  and 
with  the  ground  between  them  as  smooth  and  tidy  as  a 
Guardsman's  head ;  then,  fitting  into  this,  but  separated 
by  stone  or  rock,  more  irregular  great  triangles  of  the 
same  order — one  containing  a  thousand  Aubrietia  "  Laven- 
der," and  the  next  a  thousand  Lithospermum  prostratum 
But  nothing  else  ;  neither  blending  nor  variety — nothing 
but  a  neat  unalloyed  exhibit  like  those  on  "  rock- works  " 
at  the  Chelsea  Show.  But  what  a  display  is  here  !  You 
could  do  no  better  with  coloured  gravels.  Neat,  unbroken 
blanks  of  first  one  colour  and  then  another,  until  the 
effect  indeed  is  sumptuous  and  worthy  of  the  taste  that 
has  combined  such  a  garden.  But  "  garden  "  why  call 
it  ?  There  are  no  plants  here  ;  there  is  nothing  but 
colour,  laid  on  as  callously  in  slabs  as  if  from  the  paint- 
box of  a  child.  This  is  a  mosaic,  this  is  a  gambol  in 
purple  and  gold ;  but  it  is  not  a  rock  garden,  though  tin 
chamois  peer  never  so  frequent  from  its  cliffs  upon  the 
passer-by,  bewildered  with  such  a  glare  of  expensive 
magnificence.  This  is,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the  carpet- 
bedding  of  our  grandfathers,  with  the  colour-masses  laid 
on  in  pseudo-irregular  blots  and  drifts,  instead  of  in 
straight  stretches  ;  and  with  outlines  of  stone  between 
each  definite  patch,  instead  of  the  stitching  that  divides 
similar  colour  patch  from  patch  in  the  crazy  quilt.  Well, 
such  artists  in  the  grand  style  have  their  reward. 


Preface 

What  would  they  say  now  if  they  were  led  into  the 
garden  through  which  we  are  now  going  to  be  conducted 
by  its  creator  ?  Never  before  having  seen  a  place  for 
growing  plants  in,  never  having  heard  the  names  of  Ella- 
combe  or  Wolley-Dod — or,  if  they  have,  connecting  them 
with  no  vitalising  work  or  idea — how  will  their  noses  not 
corrugate  in  scorn  on  merely  perceiving  plants — only 
plants,  plants  well  grown,  plants  happy,  plants  well  suited 
and  consulted  and  made  at  home.  But  there  are  others, 
less  rich,  who  will  be  glad  of  traversing  such  holy  ground, 
and  learning  how  the  hills  can  be  made  to  yield  up  their 
secret,  and  their  children  taught  to  forget  the  far  high- 
lands of  their  birth,  and  feel  themselves  contented  and 
at  home  within  a  dozen  miles  of  London.  The  essence 
of  the  real  garden  is  the  insignificance  of  the  garden 
itself  ;  the  soul  of  the  real  garden  lies  in  the  perfect  pros- 
perity of  the  plants  of  which  it  is  the  home,  instead  of 
being  merely,  by  the  modern  reversal  of  right  laws,  the 
expensive  and  unregarded  colour-relief  of  its  titanically- 
compounded  cliffs  of  stucco  and  Portland  cement.  Come 
into  Mr.  Bowles's  garden  and  learn  what  true  gardening 
is,  and  what  is  the  real  beauty  of  plants,  and  what  the 
nature  of  their  display. 

A  lowly  piece  of  ground,  wandering  here  and  there 
in  gentle  natural  ravines  and  slopes.  No  vast  structures, 
but  bank  added  to  bank  as  the  plants  require  it,  and 
nothing  asked  of  the  structure  except  that  it  be  simple 
and  harmonious,  and  best  calculated  to  serve  the  need  of 
the  little  people  it  is  to  accommodate — to  accommodate, 
and  not  be  shown  off  by.  For  here  the  plants  are  lords, 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

and  the  rocks  take  their  dim  place  in  the  background  as 
helps  and  comforts  indeed,  but  by  no  means  as  the  raison 
d'etre  and  pompous  origin  of  the  whole  edifice.  And  the 
result  ?  Let  the  lovers  of  display  go  home  abashed  before 
a  display  such  as  not  a  hundred  bedded-out  Aubrietias 
can  give.  If  it  were  ever  to  be  thought  for  a  moment 
that  the  real  rock  garden  is  a  place  of  minute  moribund 
plants  and  microscopic  minutenesses,  so  that  the  only 
alternative  lies  between  this  and  the  gorgeous  soullessness 
of  the  Portland  cementery,  let  those  who  have  held  such 
notions  only  visit  Mr.  Bowles's  garden  at  almost  any 
moment  of  the  year,  and  wander  past  great  tuft  after 
tuft  of  the  rarest  and  most  difficult  brilliancies  that  have 
quite  forgotten  they  are  rare  or  difficult  at  all  or  in  exile, 
but  are  here  making  individual  masses  individually  be- 
loved and  tended,  as  full  of  rich  colour  and  the  blood  of 
life  as  they  were  on  the  Cima  Tombea  or  the  Col  de 
Tenda.  There  is  no  lack  of  show,  indeed,  as  we  wander 
past  blazing  old  clump  after  clump  of  glorious  Tulips  that 
no  one  else  can  make  survive  two  seasons,  or  wonder  at 
the  glowing  rows  of  Primulas  that  no  one  else  can  flower, 
here  gorgeous  in  their  patches  as  on  the  ridge  of  the 
Frate  di  Breguzzo  itself.  Indeed,  the  most  passionate 
admirer  of  Aubrietia  will  have  to  confess  that  his  eye  is 
no  less  completely  filled  here,  and  filled  with  more  satis- 
faction and  less  monotony  than  in  the  most  expensive 
show-garden,  filled  with  plants  at  so  much  per  thousand. 
And  what  are  the  secrets  of  this  display,  this  freshness 
of  effect,  this  profound  satisfaction  that  one  takes  away 
with  one,  wrapped  up  in  sighs  of  envy  ?  Far  be  it  from 


Preface 

me  to  bring  a  deeper  blush  to  the  cheek  of  Mr.  Bowles 
than  mantles  on  his  Primulas  in  May,  but  facts,  as  Sairey 
has  so  justly  said,  are  stubborn  and  not  easy  drove. 
Therefore  we  must  speak  the  plain  truth  :  Mr.  Bowles 
is  a  real  gardener,  and  the  real  gardener  works  with  love 
and  knowledge  and  personal  devotion,  and  not  with  money 
and  orders  issued  to  a  nurseryman.  The  highest  art  is  to 
conceal  art  ;  and  accordingly  the  first  and  last  essential 
of  the  good  rock  garden  is  that  it  should  not  look  like  a 
garden  at  all,  but  like  the  unharvested  flower-fields  of  the 
hills — effortless,  serene,  and  apparently  neglected.  And 
to  achieve  this  effect,  as  all  who  have  tried  it  well  know, 
is  the  final  ambition  of  the  real  gardener,  and  the  very 
last  to  be  attained.  For  nothing  is  harder,  in  any  walk 
of  art,  than  to  strike  the  perfect  note  of  calm  assurance — 
which  is  the  supreme  success,  and  nothing  short  of  it — 
without  falling  into  the  death  in  life  of  spick  and  spanness 
on  the  one  hand,  or  the  more  ferocious  life  in  death  of 
slovenliness  and  anarchy  on  the  other.  But  at  first  sight, 
like  all  great  works,  from  the  Monna  Lisa  downwards,  the 
really  good  garden  looks  so  simple  and  unaffected  and 
easy  that  those  who  base  their  admiration  on  a  sense  of 
money  spent  and  obvious  artificial  difficulties  surmounted, 
will  be  inclined  to  conclude  at  a  glance  that  such  a  mass 
of  intermingled  happy  plants  is  a  simple  matter  of  luck 
and  neglect  that  any  one  could  achieve.  And  this  verdict 
is  the  crowning  prize  of  the  good  gardener,  more  worth 
than  many  Standard  cups.  For  let  these  complacent 
people  only  try,  that's  all  ;  let  them  learn  by  experience 
what  it  is  to  cope  with  things  that  want  to  be  weeds,  in 
xi 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

such  a  way  that  they  do  not  succeed,  and  yet  retain  their 
own  spontaneous  happiness  ;  then  they  will  ere  long  begin 
to  learn  that  right  letting  alone  and  right  meddling  are 
the  beginning  and  the  ending  of  good  gardening,  and  that 
the  simplest  effects  are  just  precisely  those  which  defy 
money  and  ambition  and  effort,  and  everything  but  tireless 
patience,  attention,  and  knowledge  bought  at  first  hand 
with  pain. 

Come  straight  from  the  high  hills  into  this  garden  of 
Mr.  Bowles,  and  it  is  not  by  any  difference  in  the  look 
of  the  ground  or  its  plants  that  you  will  know  you  are 
not  still  there  :  here  are  no  precious  plants  pining  for 
company  in  a  grim  and  tidy  isolation ;  here  are  no  vener- 
able ancient  persons  perpetually  picking  weeds  until  all 
the  soil  between  every  plant  is  bald  as  a  billiard  ball. 
But  here  only  the  noxious  is  removed,  the  plants  are 
given  free  scope  for  enjoying  themselves  in  the  company 
they  love,  and  rare  difficult  treasures  are  jostled  into  health 
and  happiness  again  by  the  rough-and-tumble  of  life  as 
they  lived  it  on  the  hills  ;  and  the  earth  is  clothed  in  a 
thousand  new  promises,  each  one  of  which  may  in  time 
reveal  some  treasure  in  the  way  of  Crocus  or  Pink  or 
Pansy,  until  here,  more  than  ever,  does  one  realise  the 
devilish  damage  done  by  weeding  in  the  ordinary  garden 
— where,  in  fact,  there  should  be  a  local  black-list — Cress 
and  Groundsel,  and  so  forth  (though  Mr.  Bowles  would 
even  leave  the  Groundsel  on  the  chance  of  its  one  day 
producing  ray-florets  or  a  striped  leaf) — while  all  other 
offers  of  the  gods  are  left  to  flower  and  show  what  gift 
indeed  it  was  they  were  suggesting.  There  is  one  special 


Preface 

corner  of  Mr.  Bowles's  garden  of  which  I  know  that  he 
will  not  choose  adequately  to  talk,  but  of  which  I,  there- 
fore, must,  seeing  that  it  has  long  appeared  to  me  quite 
the  finest  piece  of  real  gardening  that  I  know.  It  is  a 
roughly  triangular  piece  of  ground,  and  is  filled  with  the 
Dwarf  Almond,  a  blaze  of  pink  and  white  in  spring.  But 
in  spring,  too,  all  its  ground  is  surfaced  and  crammed  and 
overflowing  with  rare  Crocus  and  Primrose  and  Bland 
Anemone,  and  every  vernal  bulb  that  is  usually  looked 
after  and  cleansed  and  cossetted,  but  here  left  alone  to 
make  itself  a  wild  plant  and  seed  and  establish  in  perfect 
naturalness  under  the  eye  of  the  gardener  who  knows  and 
loves  each  one  as  a  shepherd  knows  his  lambs.  So  much 
for  early  spring  ;  and  then,  barrenness  ?  Or  else  digging 
and  fussing  and  planting  ?  Not  a  spade  touches  that  holy 
ground,  any  more  than  iron  had  been  laid  to  the  un- 
harvested  meadow  of  Hippolytus,  but  as  the  Anemones 
and  the  Crocus  fade,  up  spring  Daffodils  and  rare  Tulips 
and  difficult  Fritillaries  that  are  everybody  else's  despair 
and  have  to  be  treated  as  annuals,  but  here  look  as  if  they 
had  just  been  poked  in  casually  and  forgotten  by  our  late 
sovereign  lady  Queen  Elizabeth,  so  that  the  whole  patch, 
under  the  light  trellis  of  the  Almonds  growing  green, 
becomes  anew,  or  continues,  a  dancing  sea  of  light  and 
colour. 

And  so  the  tale  goes  on,  and  the  glories  of  spring 
give  way  to  those  of  summer,  till  the  sea  turns  blue 
with  Campanulas,  and  the  copse,  for  so  it  now  has  grown, 
is  floating  in  blue  peat-reek  of  Campanula  patula,  while 
high  overhead  tower  the  stately  heads  of  C.  lactiflora, 
xiii 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

which  carry  on  the  generosity  of  the  world,  while  the 
great  waxen  snow-cup  and  stars  of  Hellebore  are  begin- 
ning to  think  of  the  autumn,  and  keep  the  copse  in  loveli- 
ness until  everywhere  the  Winter  Cyclamen  light  up  their 
little  lamps  of  incandescent  carbuncle.  So  is  the  wheel 
of  nature  followed  in  a  good  garden,  and  loveliness  brought 
to  birth  from  day  to  day,  as  no  money  and  no  loveless  or 
ignorant  desire  for  display  could  ever  breed  it.  And  how 
different  here  is  the  apparently  effortless  compilation  of 
nature's  best  wealth  from  the  "  display  "  (admirable  word) 
of  those  gardens  that  are  always  yelling  of  the  number  of 
bedded  plants  they  contain.  There  was  once  a  man  who 
stood  upon  the  Mont  Cenis  when  all  the  earth  was  indeed 
a  burning  deck  of  blossom,  filmed  into  the  uttermost  dis- 
tances with  the  gold  and  violet  veils  of  the  Pansies,  and 
with  the  flanks  of  the  great  mountains  snow-flaked  with 
Anemone  alpina;  he  stood  with  one  boot  on  a  foot- wide 
patch  of  Gentiana  verna,  and  the  other  trampling  a  blossom- 
hidden  carpet  of  Dryas,  and  he  looked  round  with  that 
scorn-corrugated  nose  of  which  I  lately  spoke,  and  he 
bitterly  observed,  "  I  don't  think  much  of  this  for  a  dis- 
play." Only  such  wealthy-minded  persons,  I  am  sure, 
could  have  such  a  feeling  about  any  garden  so  real  as 
this  of  Mr.  Bowles,  where  nature's  poor  little  efforts  are 
so  watched  and  followed,  and  nature's  wide  carpet  of  blue 
and  saffron  and  gold  and  rose  and  violet  rewoven  in 
a  tissue  of  loveliness,  how  different  from  the  neatly- 
partitioned  unhappiness  of  Alpines  bought  by  the  hun- 
dred and  bedded  out  for  show.  It  is  from  such  a  garden 
as  this  that  one  comes  away  both  humbled  and  consoled 
xiv 


Preface 

to  think  such  things  can  be  done,  and  that  one  has  never 
yet  succeeded  in  doing  them  oneself ;  comes  away  also 
uplifted  by  the  encouragement  of  the  garden's  wizard, 
as  well  as  weighed  down  beneath  the  precious  treasures 
he  will  so  casually  lop  off  and  pile  into  your  crowded 
basket,  until  at  last  you  grow  quite  bashful  in  your  efforts 
to  avoid  the  crowning  generosity  of  a  Nettle  with  variegated 
foliage,  or  a  Plantain  mottled  with  some  perennial  leprosy, 
which  may  have  kept  this  nature-worshipper  kneeling  in 
an  ecstasy  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  upon  the  mountains 
in  the  teeth  of  a  bitter  snow-gale,  and  despite  the  hardly 
less  bitter  cries  of  his  escort,  not  in  the  least  enthusiastic 
for  such  things,  and  longing  to  exclaim  "  Excelsior  ! "  did 
not  a  certain  lingering  knowledge  of  Latin  forbid. 

REGINALD    FARRER. 


xv 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  WHEN  DOES  SPRING  COMMENCE?       .  i 

II.  THE  GARDEN 9 

III.  EARLY  IRISES 21 

IV.  SNOWDROPS 40 

V.  SPRING  CROCUSES 62 

VI.  NUMEROUS  EARLY  COMERS 95 

VII.  DAFFODILS 117 

VIII.  PRIMULAS. 134 

IX.  MARCH  WINDS 149 

X.  APRIL  SHOWERS 161 

XL  THE  LUNATIC  ASYLUM 178 

XII.  TOM  TIDDLER'S  GROUND 191 

XIII.  ANEMONES 203 

XIV.  THE  IRIS  WALK  IN  MAY 221 

XV.  TULIPS 234 

XVI.  MY  ROCK  GARDEN 252 

XVII.  THE  CULMINATION  OF  SPRING 279 

INDEX 297 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


BLACK   AND   WHITE   PLATES 
The  Morning-room  Window  in  May         ....       Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Galanthus  Imperati  var.  Atkinsii  "  Backhouse's  Variety  "         .         .         8 

Primula  longiflora 24 

Primula  pulverulenta,  "  Mrs.  Berkeley  " 40 

Magnolia  stellata  in  the  Rock  Garden      ......       56 

Some  of  the  Lunatics 72 

Double-flowered  Anemone  appenina         .        .         .        .  .88 

Anemone  nemorosa  purpurea 104 

Anemone  sylvestris  grandi flora         .         .        .         .        .        .        .120 

The  Pond — the  large  Bog  Myrtle  and  the  Steps      .        .        .        .148 

Steps  at  end  of  Terrace — with  London  Bridge  Balusters          .         .152 

Tulipa  Kaufmanniana .         .        .156 

Helicodiceros  crinitus 168 

Hardy  Palm  in  Flower 184 

Eremurus  Elwesianus 200 

Eremurus  Bed 216 

Iris  florentina  in  May 222 

Eucalyptus  cordata 232 

A  Happy  Accident  in  grouping 248 

One  of  the  Slopes  in  the  Rock  Garden 260 

Sundial  in  the  Pergola  Garden 264 

Old  Cross  from  Enfield  Market-place       ......    272 

Solanum  crispum  in  May 280 

Symphytum  asperrimum 288 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

COLOUR   PLATES 


FACING 
PAGE 


Iris  bucharica  :  one  of  the  best  of  the  Early-flowering  Species  .  16 

Hybrids  of  Narcissus  triandrus 32 

Narcissus,  Grand  Monarque.  By  E.  Fortescue  Brickdale  .  .  48 

Narcissi:  Christalla  (w/h'te)  and  Homespun 64 

Narcissi :  Elegance  (top  flower)  and  Gloria  Mundi  ...  80 

Crown  Imperials.  By  Margaret  Waterfield 96 

Crown  Anemone.  By  E.  Fortescue  Brickdale  .  .  .  .112 

Iris  longipetala  :  a  fine  Apogon  Iris 128 

Iris  Susiana  :  A  typical  Oncocycluo  Iris 144 

Tulipa  praestans .160 

Darwin  Tulips  :  Mr.  Farncombe  Sanders,  Suzon  .  .  .  .176 
Darwin  Tulips:  Euterpe,  Frans  Hals  ......  192 

Cottage  Tulips :  Beauty  of  Bath,  Carnation 208 

Saxifraga  Burseriana  Gloria  (white)  and  S.  oppositifolia  .  .  224 

Four  White,  Rayless  Violas  :  Purity,  Mrs.  H.  Pearce,  Mad.  A. 

Gray,  Snowflake .  240 

Four  Yellow  Violas  :  Redbraes  Yellow,  Klondyke,  Maggie  Clunas, 

General  Baden-Powell 256 


XX 


MY   GARDEN    IN    SPRING 

CHAPTER  I 

When  does  Spring  Commence  ? 

IF  we  could  take  a  census  of  opinion  on  the  question, 
"  When  does  Spring  commence  ?  "  the  answers  would  be 
almost  as  variant  in  character  as  in  number. 

The  majority  of  people  would  most  likely  declare 
that  the  2ist  of  March  was  the  first  day  of  Spring,  though 
there  still  exists  a  sentimental  preference  for  the  i4th  of 
February,  the  feast  of  St.  Valentine,  while  a  large  number 
of  people  over  a  certain  age  would  insist  that  Spring 
no  longer  exists,  and  would  probably  endeavour  to  prove 
this  assertion  by  lengthy  reminiscences  of  halcyon  days 
of  yore,  which  provided  early  opportunities  for  picnics 
and  thin  raiment. 

Who  has  not  heard  their  great-aunt  Georgina  hold 
forth  on  the  Indian  muslins  that  in  bygone  Mays  were 
all-sufficient  for  her  comfort  ? 

Argument  with  such  is  useless,  and  it  is  much  better 
to  pile  fresh  logs  on  the  fire  and  shut  the  windows  to 
preserve  her  tweed-clad  frame  from  a  chill. 

"Many  lands,  many  climates,"  is  as  true  as  the  old  saying, 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

"  Many  men,  many  minds,"  so  of  necessity  the  answers  to 
this  question  must  be  as  varied  as  the  aspects  from  which 
the  subject  is  viewed,  and  I  think  some  of  them  possess 
sufficient  interest  to  warrant  investigation. 

First  we  may  take  the  astronomical  point  of  view,  and 
I  like  the  impression  of  powder  and  pigtails  and  snuffboxes 
derived  from  this  pompously-worded  quotation  from  an 
eighteenth-century  writer : 1  "  Spring  in  cosmography 
denotes  one  of  the  seasons  of  the  year  commencing  in  the 
northern  parts  of  the  world  on  the  day  the  sun  enters  the 
first  degree  of  Aries,  about  the  tenth  day  of  March,  and 
ending  when  it  leaves  Gemini.  More  strictly,  when  the  sun's 
meridian  altitude  from  the  zenith,  being  on  the  increase, 
is  at  a  medium  between  the  greatest  and  least."  Which 
holds  back  Spring  until  the  Snowdrops  have  departed, 
and  the  equinox  gives  us  March,  in  its  most  violently 
leonine  mood.  To  go  much  further  back,  we  learn  from 
Hesiod's  Works  and  Days,  which  dates  from  an  age 
but  little  later  than  Homer's  poems,  that  the  Greeks 
reckoned  the  commencement  of  Spring  by  the  evening 
rising  of  Arcturus,  sixty  days  after  the  winter  solstice. 
Happy  Greeks,  with  a  southern  sky  to  light  the  fire  of 
scarlet  Anemones  on  the  hillsides  and  announce  the  lesser 
Eleusinia  !  It  was  once  my  good  fortune  to  spend  early 
March  in  Athens,  and  enjoy  the  feast  of  the  Greek  Anemone 
(A.  hortensis,  var.  graeca),  the  most  glorious  of  all  scarlet 
flowers.  I  often  long  to  do  so  again,  but  next 
time  I  hope  some  epidemic  may  have  destroyed  the 
goats  of  the  district,  that  all  the  buds  may  escape 

1  Encyc.  Brit.  1796. 
2 


When  does  Spring  Commence  ? 

their  hungry  mouths,  and  not  only  those  growing  among 
thorny  plants. 

Here  is  another  view  from  Pliny's  Natural  History* 
as  translated  by  Philemon  Holland  :  "  To  proceed,  then, 
the  Spring  openeth  the  sea  for  sailors  ;  in  the  beginning 
whereof  the  west  winds  mitigate  the  winter  weather,  at 
what  time  as  the  Sun  is  in  the  twenty-fifth  degree  of 
Aquarius,  and  that  is  the  sixth  day  before  the  Ides  of 
February." 

Meteorologists  give  us  a  more  exact  and  practical  con- 
ception in  dating  the  beginning  of  Spring  when  the 
average  daily  temperature  reaches  48°  F. 

This  of  course  varies  with  the  latitude,  and  works  out 
like  this  for  Europe  : 

March    i.  Bordeaux,  Barcelona,  Marseilles,  Genoa. 

„       15.  Brest,  Turin,  Venice. 

April      i.  S.W.  Ireland,  Land's  End,  Paris. 

,,        15.  N.W.  Ireland,  London,  Brussels. 

May       i.  Edinburgh,  Moscow,  N.  Alps. 

„        15.  N.  Scotland,  St.  Petersburg. 

June      i.  N.W.  Norway. 

„        15.  S.  Iceland. 

July  1-15.  N.  Cape. 

It  is,  however,  from  the  gardener's  point  of  view  we 
must  regard  the  question,  and  the  wise  one  will  follow 
Bacon,  and  be  content  with  nothing  less  than  ver  perpetuum 
in  his  garden.  Reference  to  the  celebrated  Essay  shows 
that  Bacon  was  satisfied  with  mere  evergreens  for  the 
greater  part  of  winter,  and  he  writes :  "  For  December 

1  Plin.  i,  II,  Cap.  xlvii,  C.  p.  23. 

3 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

and  January  and  the  latter  part  of  November,  you  must 
take  such  things  as  are  green  all  winter  ;  holly,  ivy,  bays, 
Juniper,  cypress  trees,  yew,  pine-apple  trees,  fir  trees, 
rosemary,  lavender  ;  periwinkle,  the  white,  the  purple,  and 
the  blue  ;  germander,  flags,  orange  leaves,  lemon  trees, 
and  myrtles,  if  they  be  stoved;  and  sweet  marjoram 
warm  set."  So  that,  so  long  as  a  plant  bore  green  leaves, 
even  though  they  were  fully  developed  and  no  fresh  growth 
was  being  produced  by  it,  it  was  all  he  demanded  to  keep 
his  perpetual  Spring  alive  ;  but  in  these  later  times,  when 
so  much  more  of  the  world  has  been  rummaged  and 
ransacked  to  provide  treasures  for  our  gardens,  it  must  be 
a  very  poor  one  that,  except  during  times  of  severe  frost 
or  deep  snow,  cannot  show  some  plants  if  not  actually  in 
flower  yet  in  active  growth.  Surely  this  starting  into 
growth  is  the  true  Spring  in  plant  life,  whether  it  be  an 
awakening  due  to  the  melting  of  a  covering  of  snow 
as  with  the  high  alpines,  or  the  commencement  of  the 
rains  in  the  African  veldt ;  and  so  long  as  we  can  see  some 
plant  in  the  garden  starting  off  vigorously  for  its  annual 
round  of  existence,  so  long  in  that  spot  is  Spring  with  us. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  how  differently  certain  plants 
behave  when  removed  from  their  native  surroundings. 
Some  will  quickly  become  acclimatised,  and  accommodate 
themselves  to  the  new  conditions  ;  others  seem  to  get 
confused,  and  attempt  to  flower  at  most  unseemly  times. 
This  is  especially  noticeable  with  certain  recently  collected 
Alpine  plants,  and  Soldanellas,  Gentians,  and  certain  Pri- 
mulas such  as  P.  pedemontana,  P.  minima,  and  P.  Auricula, 
which  are  accustomed  to  form  their  flower  buds  or  crowns 
4 


When  does  Spring  Commence  ? 

in  the  early  autumn  and  then  to  go  to  rest  until  the 
Spring  under  a  covering  of  snow.  These  evidently  miss 
Jack  Frost's  annual  visit  to  their  bedsides,  to  tuck  them  up 
with  his  icy  fingers,  and  to  bid  them  good-night  till  the 
sunshine  of  next  May  shall  pull  off  their  snow  duvets 
layer  by  layer.  A  November  frost  may  close  their  eyes 
for  a  few  days,  and  then  a  sou'wester  in  December  with 
its  warm  rain  will  trick  them  into  the  belief  that  winter  is 
over,  and  they  lose  their  heads  actually  as  well  as 
figuratively,  for  the  poor  little  blooms  they  produce  all  in 
a  hurry  are  mere  caricatures,  and  generally  fall  a  prey  to 
a  roving  slug. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  find  that  most  species  of  Dian- 
thus,  Ranunculus,  Anemone  and  Leontopodium  from  the 
same  localities  are  never  deceived  into  making  a  too  early 
start.  I  think  all  New  Zealand  plants  accept  our  seasons 
within  a  twelvemonth  of  their  arrival,  and  alter  their  flower- 
ing time  to  suit  them,  but  certain  Cape  and  S.  American 
plants  never  swerve  from  the  traditions  of  their  race  ;  thus 
Oxalis  lobata  from  Chili,  and  the  S.African  O.purpurata,  better 
known  as  Bowiei,  will  not  learn  to  start  into  growth  before 
autumn,  although  O.  vespcrtilionis  from  Mexico,  O.  brasiliensis 
and  O.  floribunda  from  Brazil  come  up  smilingly  in  early 
Spring.  I  suspect  the  reason  is  that  plants  which  have  in 
nature  a  season  of  rest  imposed  by  drought  or  heat,  of 
which  Amaryllis  Belladonna  and  certain  autumn  flowering 
Croci  are  good  examples,  have  become  thoroughly  adapted 
to  rushing  into  flower  and  growth  with  the  advent  of 
autumn  rains.  At  the  same  time  there  is  a  kind  of  freewill, 
an  individuality  that  leads  plants  of  one  genus  in  a  similar 

5 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

environment  to  take  opposite  lines  of  action,  as  may  be 
seen  in  two  of  our  wild  Scillas,  S.  verna  and  S.  autumnah's, 
which  are  so  plentiful  on  some  of  the  sea  cliffs  but  have 
totally  different  seasons  of  growth  and  flowering. 

I  feel  I  have  now  freed  my  conscience  from  any  need 
to  adhere  to  the  almanac  for  the  limitation  of  Spring,  the 
plants  themselves  having  taken  a  like  licence,  but  as  in 
the  case  of  house-hunting  with  no  obligation  of  being 
within  reach  of  some  special  town,  and  the  world  to 
choose  from,  the  difficulty  of  choice  is  enormously 
increased,  so  if  we  allow  that  any  freshly-started  flower 
brings  its  own  Spring  with  it,  as  fire  to  frying-pan  or 
Charybdis  to  Scylla  so  stands  the  fresh  basis  of  choice  to 
the  old. 

I  have  a  strong  conviction  that  the  first  real  breath 
of  Spring  that  I  inhale  in  the  garden  comes  from  Iris 
unguicularis.  I  always  look  for,  and  generally  find  a  bud 
or  two  in  the  last  week  of  September,  or  in  later 
seasons  in  mid-October,  usually  before  Crocus  longiflorus 
is  fully  open.  The  scent  of  those  two  flowers  is  remark- 
ably alike.  When  we  were  children  one  of  our  favourite 
games  was  a  trial  of  nose-power  :  one  of  us  was  blind- 
folded and  the  others  submitted  samples  of  leaves  and 
flowers  to  be  smelt  and  recognised.  In  those  days  we  had 
neither  this  Iris  nor  Crocus  to  play  with,  but  I  feel  sure 
the  two  would  have  proved  indistinguishable.  We  then 
relied  mostly  on  the  similarity  of  the  odours  of  an  untimely 
shed  cucumber,  begged  from  the  peppery  but  kindly  old 
gardener,  and  young  growths  of  Philadelphus  crushed  and 
matured  to  the  acme  of  redolence  by  confinement  in  a 

6 


When  does  Spring  Commence  ? 

chubby  hot  hand  ;  or  a  well-sucked  Gooseberry  skin  and  a 
spray  of  Shepherd's  Purse  or  Arabis. 

Many  people  admit  that  the  sense  of  smell  brings 
things  more  vividly  to  the  memory  than  that  of  sight.  I 
know  that  it  is  so  with  me,  and  a  whiff  of  Ins  unguicularis 
or  Crocus  longiflorus,  though  several  other  Crocuses  are 
almost  equally  endowed  (C.  laevigatus  and  vitellinus  among 
the  autumnal  species  and  C.  Imperati  in  early  Spring  cer- 
tainly are),  recalls  a  feeling  of  Spring  in  autumn  far  more 
vividly  than  the  sight  of  the  flowers  of  a  Snowdrop  such 
as  Galanthus  Olgae,  which  is  in  bloom  at  the  same  time. 
We  greatly  want  a  chart  of  scents  with  descriptive  names 
for  the  distinct  groups,  and  when  it  comes  I  should  like  to 
patent  the  name  of  "  Pure  Spring  "  for  the  odour  of  these 
flowers.  It  is  fuller  than  the  scent  of  Primroses,  with 
a  promise  of  honey  in  it  strong  enough  to  wake  any  bee, 
yet  you  feel  it  is  not  such  brown-heather  honey  as  Alyssum 
maritimum  and  Buddkia  globosa  advertise,  for  there  is  a 
correcting  sharpness  in  it,  like  that  of  lemon  with  the 
sugar  of  a  Shrove  Tuesday  pancake,  and  such  as  we  find 
in  the  scent  of  Cylisus  racemosus  and  stronger  still  in 
Narcissus  Tazetta. 

Again,  in  the  soft  lilac  colouring  and  crystalline  texture 
and  frail  substance  of  their  blooms  these  two  Irids  are 
markedly  springlike.  Except  in  orchids  from  seasonless 
glasshouses  and  Iris  Kaempferi,  summer  and  autumn 
flowers,  so  far  as  I  can  remember,  lack  the  crystalline 
texture  of  Spring  flowers  such  as  Daffodils,  Hyacinths, 
Crocuses,  and  all  early  Irises. 

Begonias  have  it,  but  I  do  not  like  their  fat,  meaty 
7 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

blossoms  and  floppy  habits,  and  cannot  be  bothered  with 
them,  however  much  their  petals  may  sparkle. 

So  as  this  chapter  has  already  wandered  too  far,  like 
Campanula  excisa  in  the  sand-moraine,  I  shall  elect  Iris 
unguicularis  as  the  first  flower  of  Spring,  and  arrange 
further  chapters  more  on  the  flowers  themselves  than  on 
the  dates  of  their  flowering. 


CHAPTER    II 

The  Garden 

BEFORE  touching  the  flowers  I  must  speak  of  the  garden 
itself,  as  its  conditions  are  answerable  for  many  of  the 
limitations  that  govern  the  variety  and  conditions  of  its 
occupants. 

The  garden,  then,  is  situated  in  the  parish  of  Enfield 
in  the  county  of  Middlesex,  but  so  near  to  the  Hertford- 
shire boundary  that  our  postal  address  is  Waltham  Cross, 
Hertfordshire  :  and  I  envy  but  do  not  share  the  celebrated 
rose-growing  soil  of  that  district.  By  comparing  a  bench- 
mark in  the  wall  with  the  Ordnance  Survey  maps,  I  learn 
we  are  111.4  feet  above  the  sea-level.  Helleborus  niger 
tells  me  that  this  is  not  a  sufficient  altitude  for  its  comfort, 
and  I  must  provide  it  with  shade,  and  moisture  beyond 
that  of  the  atmosphere,  if  I  wish  it  to  "  grow  for  me,"  as 
Irish  gardeners  say  so  pleasantly.  I  like  the  personal 
reciprocal  touch  in  these  words.  How  different  a  vision 
of  mutual  understanding  they  conjure  up  from  that  mild 
reproach  and  suggestion  of  wilful  suicide  conveyed  in  the 
other  Hibernian  garden  phrase,  "  It  died  on  me,"  which 
so  neatly  lays  the  blame  on  the  plant. 

The  nearest  milestone  tells  me  it  is  but  ten  miles  from 
London,  and  smutty  evergreens,  blackened  tree  trunks, 
and  grimy  fingers  continually  corroborate  that  milestone, 

9 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

in  spite  of  the  richness  of  our  avian  fauna  and  well-wooded, 
countrified  surroundings.  Fortunately,  being  due  north 
of  London,  we  do  not  get  so  many  second-hand  London 
fogs  as  our  nearness  suggests.  South  winds  rarely  follow 
a  period  of  fog,  nor  do  fogs  often  last  for  several  days  in 
London,  until  their  own  weight  spreads  them  out  as  far  as 
this  place,  so  we  do  not  get  the  genuine  article  so  badly  or 
so  often  as  do  Kew  and  Acton  and  other  places  on  the 
south  side  of  London. 

I  cannot  believe  there  is  a  drier  garden  to  be  found 
in  England.  It  is  on  the  edge  of  that  district  which  I 
think  is  classed  with  Yarmouth  as  having  the  lowest  rain- 
fall of  Great  Britain,  and  lies  in  a  centre  seldom  visited  by 
heavy  thunderstorms  ;  the  higher  ground  running  from 
Enfield  to  Potter's  Bar  and  Hatfield,  and  the  Lea  Valley 
on  our  other  side,  seem  to  lure  away  our  rain-clouds. 
Storms  often  divide  within  sight  of  khaki-coloured  lawns 
and  flagging  flowers  to  flood  the  railway  lines  at  Ponder's 
End  and  Waltham,  and  do  equally  damp  and  doughty  deeds 
for  St.  Albans,  leaving  us  as  dry  as  ever,  an  insulting  sort 
of  wind  perhaps  blowing  down  a  barrowful  of  dead  Lime 
leaves  on  to  the  lawn  even  in  mid-July.  This  alone  seems 
sufficient  to  make  the  garden  as  designed  by  nature  fit 
only  for  xerophytic  plants  from  desert  and  steppe  and 
soilless  cliff,  or  even  the  Moon  itself  when  a  collector  gets 
as  far.  But  the  wonder  is  that  anything  else  besides 
Opuntias,  Sedums,  and  Houseleeks  can  exist  through  a 
summer,  for  the  soil  is  in  league  with  the  climate.  In  the 
greater  part  of  the  garden,  digging  below  the  surface 
brings  one  face  to  face  with  gravel,  splendidly  healthy 
10 


The  Garden 

drainage  to  build  one's  house  upon  of  course,  and  when  it 
is  a  good  red  binding  sample,  a  positive  luxury  for  garden 
paths.  There  the  advantages  end,  however,  for  although 
we  have  made  plenty  of  paths,  gravelled  them  unstintingly, 
and  got  out  a  good  deal  of  the  material  from  the  garden 
itself,  there  still  remain  untold  supplies  below,  and  much 
of  it  so  coarse  and  unprofitable  that  getting  it  out  entails 
carting  it  away  and  finding  some  pond  or  hollow  that 
needs  filling  to  justify  the  labour.  This  coarse  gravel 
discouraged  all  my  childish  schemes  for  digging  ponds, 
gold  mines,  and  that  passage  to  the  Antipodes  that  generally 
has  to  be  tried  during  some  flowerless  month  in  the 
children's  gardens.  Perhaps  it  turned  my  mind  off  from 
all  thoughts  of  engineering  and  drove  it  to  the  surface  and 
the  tilling  thereof.  As  in  our  deepest  excavations  in  all  the 
upper  part  of  the  garden,  we  have  never  yet  got  through 
this  vein  of  coarse  gravel,  perhaps  I  may  be  forgiven  for  a 
belief  that  our  gravel  runs  right  through  the  centre  of  the 
earth  to  our  antipode  whatever  it  is ;  I  don't  know,  but  I 
hope  it  is  New  Zealand,  because  then  perhaps  the  water  that 
soaks  away  so  quickly  here  may  be  interesting  hot  geysers 
at  the  other  side  and  my  nourishing  manurings  conveyed 
to  the  roots  of  antipodean  Cabbage  Palms  and  Ratas. 

The  greatest  evil  of  a  gravel  subsoil  is  its  unsuitability 
for  deep  roots.  Trees  will  not  enter  it,  but  they  turn 
their  main  roots  out  over  its  surface,  and  so  go  a-hunting 
into  all  the  newly  dug  and  enriched  beds. 

Old  trees  are  precious  possessions  in  gardens,  and 
must  be  respected,  but  I  do  feel  cross  with  them  when  I 
find  an  underground  bird's  nest  of  strong,  fibrous  roots 
II 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

in  a  vacant  spot  in  a  newly-arranged  border  kept  empty 
for  a  month  or  so  for  some  choice  plant.  I  have  very 
seldom  come  across  a  gardener  who  does  not  complain  of 
his  soil  or  climate,  or  both,  and  there  are  but  few  so 
happily  placed  that  his  complaints  would  be  easily  detected 
as  absurd  and  groundless,  for  there  can  always  be  too 
much  lime  for  some  Rhododendrons  or  too  little  for  an 
exacting  Clematis  or  two.  Yet  in  grumbling  at  my 
gardening  conditions  I  do  not  feel  a  parallel  case  to  the 
lunatic  who,  in  spite  of  believing  himself  in  heaven,  was 
never  happy,  and  told  an  inquirer  it  was  because  he  had 
a  second-hand  halo  that  did  not  fit  and  his  harp  was  out 
of  tune,  and  I  turn  and  rend  any  who  base  their  claims 
for  pity  and  indulgence  for  starved  plants  on  the  possession 
of  a  sandy  soil,  for  well  do  I  know  the  way  trees  make 
long  tap  roots  and  find  moisture  deep  down  in  most 
varieties  of  sand,  in  which,  besides  showing  an  honest  re- 
spect for  the  nutriment  allotted  to  surface  rooters,  these 
tap  rooters  anchor  themselves  so  pleasantly  and  save  much 
labour  and  worry  of  staking.  But  here  young  Conifers 
and  hobbledehoy  Eucalypts  are  sources  of  anxiety  and 
often  of  farewell  lamentation  at  every  equinox.  So  on 
most  days  in  the  year  I  would  barter  my  smooth,  firm 
paths  for  a  good  deep  sand,  with  its  storage  of  moisture 
deep  down. 

Of  water  there  seems  to  be  plenty,  for  the  New  River  runs 
right  through  the  very  centre  of  the  garden  ;  but  though  it 
may  carry  many  millions  of  gallons  through  it,  clever 
Sir  Hugh  Myddleton  made  its  clay  banks  so  strong  that 
even  after  300  years  they  let  no  water  soak  away,  and  I 
12 


The  Garden 

smile  quietly  when  people  say,  "  Of  course  your  Irises  do 
so  well  all  along  by  the  river,  as  they  get  moisture  from 
it,"  for  I  know  those  beds  under  the  old  Yews  are  about 
the  driest  in  Europe.  The  water  is  there  in  the  river  bed, 
but  as  a  gardener  once  said  to  me,  "  Yes,  sir,  there's 
plenty  of  water  but  it's  very  low  down."  I  often  think  of 
his  plaint  when  I  too  have  been  dragging  it  up  in  fat, 
lumpy  water-cans,  and  wish  I  had  standpipes  and  hose 
and  sprinklers  and  the  many  luxuries  of  people  lucky 
enough  to  have  water  high  up,  on  the  top  of  their  own 
hill,  like  good  old  Tom  Smith's  ideal  nursery  at  Newry,  or 
in  the  water-tower  of  the  neighbouring  town.  I  must 
enumerate  my  difficulties,  or  my  readers  will  not  appre- 
ciate the  skill  and  energy  necessary  here  to  grow  the 
things  they  have  to  tear  up  as  weeds  in  their  own  gardens, 
and  one  of  my  troubles  is  the  well-known  hardness  of 
New  River  water.  Derived  mainly  from  chalk  wells,  it  is 
so  hard  that  one  feels  it  would  be  scarcely  a  miracle  to 
walk  on  it,  and  when  the  well  nearest  to  us  is  in  full  work 
there  is  a  distinct  bluish-green  colour  in  the  river,  rather 
attractive  to  look  at,  but  as  I  have  found  by  experience, 
rendering  it  an  absolute  poison  for  certain  calcifuge  plants. 
A  liberal  dose  of  New  River  water  given  in  a  spirit  of 
kindness  to  a  collection  of  dwarf  Rhododendrons  during 
a  time  of  drought  killed  all  but  one  in  about  a  fortnight. 
The  survivor  is  with  me  still,  being  evidently  a  lime  lover, 
a  hybrid  of  R.  hirsutum. 

With  these  limitations  to  the  possibilities  of  watering 
and   manuring    I    dread   a  spell  of   drought,  and  always 
prefer   that   a   garden    visitor   coming   for   the   first   time 
13 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

should  do  so  before  the  middle  of  June.  A  wise  old 
farmer  once  said  to  me,  in  speaking  of  the  new  Parlia- 
mentary candidate,  "  Why,  he  promises  'em  anything,  a 
shower  of  rain  every  night  and  a  shower  of  manure  on 
Sundays."  I  have  ever  since  felt  that  the  fulfilment  of 
those  promises  is  what  my  garden  and  I  need,  from  June 
to  October  anyway. 

As  gardens  go,  I  suppose  this  must  be  called  an  old 
one,  for  as  far  as  I  can  make  out  it  seems  to  be  about 
400  years  since  a  certain  row  of  Yews  were  planted. 
They  are  in  a  crescent-shaped  line,  and  the  course  of  the 
river  follows  the  same  bend.  Those  who  are  knowledg- 
able  about  the  rate  of  growth  of  Yews  in  a  hungry  soil 
declare  them  to  be  older  than  the  river.  So  it  seems 
probable  that  their  owner  in  1609,  to  save  his  trees, 
insisted  on  this  otherwise  meaningless  bend  in  the  river. 
It  was  not  until  another  century  had  passed  that  my 
Huguenot  ancestors  bought  the  property  and  settled  down 
here,  and  I  was  always  told  that  two  quaint  old  Flemish 
figures  in  carved  stone  were  in  the  garden  when  they 
bought  it.  Huguenots  ought  to  have  left  a  heritage  of 
Mulberry  and  Catalpa.  The  old  Mulberry  tree  was 
blown  down  before  my  day,  but  the  remains  of  a  Catalpa, 
starved  and  driven  to  a  horizontal  line  of  growth  by  a  fine 
old  Beech,  may  be  of  their  planting,  for  certainly  no  one 
with  a  grain  of  gardening  sense  would  have  placed  it  so  near 
even  a  half-grown  Beech.  It  is  so  fascinating  to  hunt  up 
evidence  in  the  trees  themselves  of  otherwise  unrecorded 
work  of  one's  forbears  that  I  am  sorely  tempted  to  linger 
among  these  vegetable  documents,  but  will  try  to  confine 


The  Garden 

myself  to  those  that  are  necessary  to  explain  the  present 
condition  of  the  ground. 

The  most  evident  signs  of  gardening  date  from  the 
earliest  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  place 
belonged  to  my  great-grandmother,  the  last  of  the 
Garnaults,  for  on  her  marriage  in  1799  the  pleasant  old 
French  name  was  changed  for  the  unromantic-sounding 
patronymic  which  I  think  must  be  the  longest  mono- 
syllable in  the  English  language,  and  unless  carefully  spelt 
as  well  as  pronounced  in  shops  and  stores  suffers  strange 
vagaries  in  form,  some  of  them  exceedingly  unpleasing  to 
the  polite  eye.  This  Ann  Garnault  has  left  her  mark  on 
the  garden  by  planting  a  deciduous  Cypress  (Taxodium 
distichum},  which,  in  spite  of  a  subsequent  draining  of  the 
pond  by  which  it  was  planted,  has  grown  into  a  really 
fine  tree. 

In  one  favourable  season  it  matured  a  few  cones,  but 
the  catkins  seldom  get  a  fair  chance  of  full  development. 
They  are  formed  in  the  autumn,  and  remain  green  when 
the  foliage  turns  to  that  deep  red  so  characteristic  of  this 
tree — the  red  of  a  fox's  coat,  or  of  Devon  cattle.  They 
remain  on  the  tree  after  the  falling  of  the  leaves  has  covered 
the  beds  with  an  apparent  mulch  of  cocoanut  fibre,  but 
severe  winters  bring  many  of  them  down,  and  even  the 
few  tassels  of  male  catkins  left  generally  fail  to  effect 
perfect  fertilisation  of  the  queer  little  solitary  female 
blossoms  for  lack  of  dry  sunny  days  with  mild  breezes 
in  early  Spring.  The  good  example  of  Great-grand- 
mother Ann  has  been  followed  by  the  two  succeeding 
generations,  but  the  younger  Cypresses  are  of  course 
15 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

far  behind  the  big  tree.  After  his  wife's  death  my  great- 
grandfather pulled  down  the  old  red-brick  gabled  house 
and  built  the  present  one  of  the  then  fashionable  yellow 
brick  brought  from  as  far  away  as  Suffolk,  wherefore  it 
has  been  my  constant  aim  to  smother  it  in  creepers  of 
all  kinds.  Some  contemporary  water-colours  of  the  old 
house  show  a  hearty  middle-aged  Larch  on  what  was 
then  the  bowling-green,  but  before  I  can  remember  it 
had  lost  its  formal  rectangular  shape  and  become  an 
ordinary  lawn,  bounded  by  various  paths.  The  Larch 
still  stands,  and  is  a  venerable  specimen,  but  has  only 
been  able  to  grow  on  its  northern  side,  having  always 
been  crowded  on  the  south  by  other  trees.  Plantations 
of  Scots  Pines  shown  in  these  drawings  as  saplings  are 
now  replaced  by  either  fine  old  trees,  or  some  dead  and 
dying  trunks  rather  puzzling  to  deal  with,  and  spaces 
from  which  others  have  gone.  For  the  period  of  active 
planting  must  have  been  followed  by  one  of  passive 
inattention,  taken  advantage  of  by  certain  Horse  Chestnuts 
and  Sycamores  to  place  their  greedy,  grabbing  offspring 
out  in  the  world.  How  these  robbers  grow !  They 
throw  a  light  on  the  Psalmist's  phrase  of  lurking  in 
thievish  corners :  unobserved  they  get  a  foothold  and 
turn  their  corner  into  a  den  for  receiving  stolen  goods, 
and  then  up  they  go,  and  their  betters  are  choked  and 
starved  by  these  arboreal  garotters.  I  can  scarcely 
believe,  when  looking  at  the  garden,  that  I  have  one  by 
one  displaced  such  a  forest  of  these  coarse,  garden  un- 
desirables. It  has  been  a  very  gradual  process,  spread 
over  twenty  years,  for  I  only  garden  in  my  father's 
16 


Iris  bucharica  :  one  of  the  best  of  the  early  flowering  species 


The  Garden 

garden,  and  I  hope  something  of  filial  piety,  as  well  as 
the  realisation  of  the  impossibility  of  having  one's  own 
way  under  such  circumstances,  has  led  me  in  the  path 
of  gentle  and  gradual  elimination  of  these  devouring 
hordes,  which  from  other  views  are  of  course  trees,  and 
therefore  not  to  be  lightly  felled. 

One  of  the  last  of  the  Horse  Chestnuts  dropped  several 
stout  limbs  on  a  row  of  garden  seats  last  summer,  and  pro- 
vided a  powerful  argument  for  the  removal  of  the  trunk 
that  shed  them.  So  from  the  garden  proper  they  have 
gone  to  the  timber  yard,  and  as  firelogs  serve  to  warm  my 
bones  instead  of  offending  my  eye.  To  anyone  who  may 
follow  my  example  I  offer  this  hint :  be  quite  sure  the 
wood  is  well  dried  before  sawing  it  up  for  bringing  into 
the  house  ;  otherwise  the  scent  of  sour  sap  will  be  as 
offensive  to  the  nose  as  the  misplaced  tree  was  to  the 
eye.  To  sum  up  the  present  conditions  of  the  garden  ; 
climate,  soil,  and  trees  contrive  to  make  it  the  driest  and 
hungriest  in  Great  Britain,  and  therefore  arises  the  line  of 
gardening  I  have  been  driven  into.  It  is  perhaps  better 
described  as  collecting  plants  and  endeavouring  to  keep 
them  alive,  than  as  gardening  for  beautiful  effects  or  the 
production  of  prize-winning  blossoms.  Many  find  the 
garden  too  museumy  to  please  them.  I  plead  guilty  to 
the  charge,  knowing  there  is  more  of  the  botanist  and 
lover  of  species  and  natural  forms  and  varieties  in  me 
than  there  is  of  the  florist  or  fine  cultivator.  In  fact 
I  gladly  give  a  home  to  the  class  of  plant  the  writers  in 
early  numbers  of  the  Botanical  Magazine  and  Botanical 
Register  faintly  praise  as  being  suitable  for  the  gardens 
17  B 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

of  the  curious.  It  gives  me  more  pleasure  to  have  got 
together  the  three  distinct  forms — grey-leaved,  golden, 
and  major — of  Sedunt  spathulatum,  and  to  make  them 
share  a  flat-topped  rock  with  at  least  six  other  species 
of  Sedum,  than  to  have  the  same  space  monopolised 
by  Sedunt  pilosum,  new,  rare,  and  lovely  though  it  be. 

Again,  Euphorbias  are  plentiful  here,  but  Zinnias, 
Clarkias,  and  bedding  Begonias  find  no  welcome,  and 
Gaillardias,  Cactus  Dahlias,  and  such  plants  are  few.  After 
such  a  confession  will  you  care  to  wander  round  my 
garden  with  me?  Will  you  have  enough  patience  to 
let  me  talk  of  the  differences  between  the  blue  Wood 
Anemones  of  Norway  and  those  of  Southern  Ireland 
or  Western  England  and  Wales?  It  is  only  fair  to 
state  that  colour  scheming  is  impossible  in  the  circum- 
stances, and  though  I  have  enjoyed  having  eight  fingers 
and  two  thumbs  in  several  iridescent  pies  for  other 
folks'  gardens  (and  some  of  them  have  proved  "  pretty 
eating,"  as  is  said  in  Ireland  and  seems  to  fit  the 
metaphor),  except  for  one  effort  in  grouping  coloured 
foliage  with  suitable  flowers  of  which  I  am  rather  proud, 
most  of  my  effects,  blends,  and  contrasts  have  been 
the  result  of  accident,  or  rather  the  placing  and  grouping 
of  plants  in  surroundings  I  hoped  would  be  suitable  for 
their  health  rather  than  their  appearance. 

I  fear  I  am  a  little  impatient  of  the  school  of  garden- 
ing that  encourages  the  selection  of  plants  merely  as 
artistic  furniture,  chosen  for  colour  only,  like  ribbons 
or  embroidery  silks.  I  feel  sorry  for  plants  that  are 
obliged  to  make  a  struggle  for  life  in  uncongenial  situa- 
18 


The  Garden 

tions  because  their  owner  wishes  all  things  of  those  shades 
of  pink,  blue,  or  orange  to  fit  in  next  to  the  grey  or 
crimson  planting,  and  I  long  to  shift  the  unhappy  Lilium 
pardalinum  away  from  its  sun- loving  Alstroemeria  part- 
ners and  plant  it  across  the  path  among  the  shade-loving 
Phloxes.  The  distribution  of  plants  in  this  garden  has 
been  governed  chiefly  by  a  sort  of  extra  sense  that  seems 
to  be  developed  by  many  enthusiastic  gardeners,  a  sym- 
pathetic understanding  derived  from  a  new  plant's  appear- 
ance only  when  the  power  is  perfected  ;  but  in  others, 
less  qualified  as  clairvoyants,  a  knowledge  of  its  native 
country  will  often  suggest  its  future  neighbours. 

One  of  the  finest  collections  of  trees  and  shrubs  to 
be  found  in  any  private  garden  in  England  is  arranged 
by  grouping  them  according  to  their  native  continents 
or  the  larger  countries,  such  as  China.  But  that  garden 
is  so  well  favoured  in  situation  and  climate  that  almost 
any  plant  will  grow  in  almost  any  part  of  it.  Without 
such  a  strict  geographical  system,  however,  one  finds  that 
certain  portions  of  the  garden  get  allotted  to  N.  American, 
Mediterranean,  and  other  plants  with  marked  preferences 
for  sun  or  shade.  But  the  sense  I  mean  is  an  inexplic- 
able knowledge  and  feeling,  a  sort  of  wireless  message 
from  the  plant  to  the  invisible  antennae  of  the  gardener. 
Such  an  one  sits  down  to  unpack  a  box  of  novelties 
and  can  divide  them  out — Trilliums  to  the  left-hand  basket 
for  the  cool  border,  Viola  bosniaca  to  the  right  for  the 
sand-moraine,  with  Wahlenbergia  gracilis  and  Leucocrinum 
montanum  for  companions. 

So  here  my  sixth  gardening  sense,  as  in  the  last 
19 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

instance,  does  not  shrink  from  associating  eastern  Euro- 
pean plants  with  New  Zealanders  and  Californians,  and 
it  is  rather  the  physical  geography  of  the  borders  than 
the  native  countries  of  their  occupants  that  has  settled 
the  question  of  position. 

It  would  be  more  pleasant  to  be  able  to  refer  to  a 
border  as  China  or  South  Africa  instead  of  such  names 
as  position  or  quality  of  soil  suggest.  Here,  for  instance, 
we  have  the  Damp  Bed,  but  I  must  warn  all  who  read 
that  it  is  but  a  courtesy  title,  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
not  quite  so  dry  as  other  beds  because  it  lies  on  the 
north  side  of  some  tall  trees,  and  when  last  we  turned 
it  out  during  autumn  manoeuvres,  we  put  a  good  layer 
of  peat  moss  two  feet  underground. 


20 


CHAPTER   III 

Early  Irises 

SUPPOSE  a  wicked  uncle  who  wished  to  check  your  gar- 
dening zeal  left  you  pots  of  money  on  condition  you  grew 
only  one  species  of  plants  :  what  would  you  choose  ?  I 
should  settle  on  Iris  ungm'cularis,  as  in  summer  one  could 
get  whiffs  of  other  folks'  roses  and  lilies  and  all  the  dull 
season  enjoy  the  flowers  of  this  beautiful  Iris.  It  was  some 
twenty-four  years  ago  I  first  saw  it  in  the  gardens  at  La 
Mortola.  Sir  Thomas  H  anbury  parted  its  forelock  of  long 
leaves  and  displayed  a  mass  of  lilac  blossoms,  and  then 
and  there  I  vowed  I  must  grow  it,  and  grow  it  well  too. 

I  had  some  difficulty  in  finding  out  where  to  get  it, 
and  I  suppose  it  was  not  so  well  known  then  as  now,  as  I 
could  hear  of  no  one  among  my  gardening  neighbours 
who  could  flower  it.  I  was  fortunate  in  getting  hold  of 
a  good  variety  for  my  first  plant,  and  in  trying  to  imitate 
its  warm  home  at  La  Mortola,  I  planted  it  against  the 
front  wall  of  a  peach-house,  where  a  southern  exposure  and 
warmth  from  the  water-pipes  brought  it  into  flower  within 
a  year  of  planting,  and  set  me  to  work  to  get  other  forms 
and  find  further  suitable  sites  for  them.  So  many  people 
complain  of  its  shyness  of  flowering  that  I  feel  bound  to 
give  my  experiences  of  it  rather  fully,  hoping  to  help 
others  thereby.  I  soon  found  that  the  varietal  forms  in 
21 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

commerce  had  very  well-marked  idiosyncrasies,  not  only 
as  to  outward  appearance  but  in  period  and  freedom  of 
flowering.  The  paler  flowered  forms  are  those  that  flower 
earliest  and  most  surely  in  autumn.  That  known  as 
ntarginata  is  generally  the  first,  and  the  white  one  and  the 
variety  liladna  often  come  in  a  dead  heat  for  second  place. 
Pale  colouring  is  correlated  with  early  flowering,  it  seems, 
and  the  varietal  name  liladna  is  fully  justified,  both  it  and 
marginata  bearing  flowers  of  a  softer  and  bluer  shade  than 
any  others  ;  marginata  has  a  narrow  but  regular  white 
edge  to  the  falls,  not  wide  or  distinct  enough  to  add  to  the 
beauty  of  the  blossom,  but  sufficient  to  warrant  the  use  of 
the  name,  and  both  forms  have  wider  leaves  than  the  type, 
and,  what  is  better,  larger  flowers.  I  strongly  advise  any- 
one wishing  for  autumn  and  early  winter  flowers  to  plant 
these  two  forms  along  with  the  white  one.  Half  a  dozen 
good  plants  of  each  ought  to  provide  buds  for  picking  in 
constant  succession  through  November,  December,  and 
in  open  weather  in  January.  It  is  curious  that  the  white 
form  should  flower  with  the  pale  lilac  ones,  as  in  appear- 
ance it  is  evidently  an  albino  of  the  type,  having  leaves  of 
medium  width  and  flowers  rather  diminished  in  size,  as  is 
so  often  the  case  with  an  albino  form. 

I  once  heard  of  a  larger,  white  form,  but  diligent 
inquiry  and  an  ever-open  eye  have  failed  to  discover  it. 
I  believe  all  the  white  flowered  plants  in  cultivation  in 
Britain  are  divisions  from  a  single  plant  found  about 
thirty-five  years  ago  by  Mr.  Edwyn  Arkwright  when 
riding  through  the  then  wild  scrub  on  the  hillside  near 
Algiers,  but  seedlings  raised  from  it  ought  to  show  variation, 
22 


Early  Irises 


and  careful  selection  should  give  us  larger  forms.  I  am 
watching  a  family  of  yearling  babes,  and  hoping  the  leaves 
are  increasing  in  width  sufficiently  to  promise  good  results. 

What  I  imagine  must  be  the  type  form,  because  it  is 
the  commonest  in  cultivation,  has  medium-sized  flowers 
of  a  distinctly  warm  lilac :  perhaps  it  is  not  going  too  far 
to  say  they  are  flushed  with  rose,  after  the  manner  of  the 
compilers  of  catalogues.  I  never  expect  them  to  flower 
until  New  Year's  Day  has  come  and  gone,  so  in  making  a 
planting  for  picking  purposes  it  will  save  time  and  trouble 
by  keeping  the  early  flowering  sorts  together,  for  except 
during  spells  of  settled  mild  weather,  which  Heaven  knows 
are  as  rare  as  spare  moments,  it  is  best  to  pick  the  buds  a 
day  before  they  open,  and  at  that  time  they  are  not  very 
conspicuous,  as  the  under  sides  of  the  falls  are  then  of  a 
pale,  dingy  buff  shade,  slightly  tinged  with  greyish  lilac  at 
their  edges,  and  are  very  hard  to  distinguish  from  browned 
tips  of  old  leaves.  In  consequence  of  this  it  is  often 
necessary,  not  only  to  examine  the  clumps  at  close 
quarters,  but  to  lift  the  longer  leaves  with  one's  hand,  and 
all  that  means  stooping,  and  a  gardener's  back  never 
requires  more  of  that  sort  of  physical  drill  than  is 
absolutely  necessary,  neither  is  it  good  for  his  temper  to 
hunt  over  clumps  of  late  flowering  forms  before  the  reward 
for  so  doing  is  due. 

This  plan  of  inconspicuous  colouring  for  unexpanded 
buds  and  closed  flowers  has  been  adopted  by  many  winter- 
flowering  plants.  It  would  seem  they  are  cryptically 
coloured  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  observation  and 
consequent  destruction  by  enemies.  Thus  many  of  the 
23 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

early  lilac  Crocuses  have  the  outer  surface  of  the  exterior 
segments  coloured  buff,  as  in  Crocus  Imperati  and  C.  etruscus, 
or  of  a  neutral  grey  shade,  as  in  C.  Tomasinianus,  while 
others  are  striped  or  freckled  with  browns  and  purples  in 
a  manner  that  renders  them  very  hard  to  see  among 
their  own  leaves  or  grass  in  the  case  of  stripes,  or  against 
bare  ground  on  a  dull  day  or  when  closed  for  the  night 
if  suffused  externally.  A  spell  of  sunshine  changes  this 
in  a  few  minutes,  and  the  glowing  interior  of  the  flower 
shows  up  from  afar,  and  is  ready  for  fertilisation  by  any 
insect  visitor  which  may  be  rendered  active  and  hungry 
by  the  same  bright  spell.  I  have  been  unable  to  discover 
what  are  the  enemies  of  such  flowers  in  their  own  homes, 
but  judging  from  the  evil  habits  of  that  vulgar  little  pest 
the  sparrow,  one  is  inclined  to  fancy  they  may  be  birds 
of  sorts.  But  for  the  sake  of  those  to  whose  charitable 
sentimentality  all  members  of  the  avian  fauna  are  the  "  dear 
little  birds,"  repaying  winter  doles  of  crumbs  with  spring 
carols,  I  will  offer  a  scapegoat  in  the  form  of  some 
beetle  of  the  family  of  Cantharidae  such  as  our  British 
Oil  Beetle,  Meloe  Proscarabaeus,  to  which  a  fresh  young 
flower  is  a  toothsome  breakfast,  for  I  notice  that  those 
who  can  overlook  anything  in  a  bird — "  a  dear  little  bird" 
of  course,  ostriches  and  eagles  being  outside  their 
spheres  of  experience — are  ever  ready  to  denounce  or 
bring  about  the  destruction  of  « nasty  creeping  things." 
For  myself,  I  am  too  light  a  sleeper  to  appreciate  the 
cheeping  of  newly-awakened  sparrows  in  the  Wistaria 
round  my  window,  and  too  fond  of  its  flowers  to  forgive 
their  chewing  the  swelling  bloombuds. 
24 


Primula  longiflora.     (Seep    138.) 


Early  Irises 


I  think  the  longest  word  in  the  Greek  Lexicon  was 
invented  for  use  in  a  maledictory  imprecation  against 
sparrows.  One  feels  that  to  pronounce  it  rapidly,  or  to 
write  it  clearly  on  lintel  and  sidepost,  ought  to  kill  them 
off  in  flocks.  Try  it  ;  it  is  quite  simple,  only  this  :  opOpotyoi 
ToirvKocpavToSiKOTaXaiTrwpo?,  which  being  translated  is 
"  early  -prowling  base -informing  sad-litigious  plaguey 
ways,"  almost  as  beautiful  in  its  hyphened  English  as  in 
the  original  Greek. 

The  success  of  7.  unguicularis  as  a  cut  flower  depends 
so  much  on  careful  picking,  and  experience  has  taught  me 
how  to  grapple  with  so  many  sources  of  difficulty  and 
injury,  that  details  are  perhaps  worth  recording.  The 
first  thing  to  note  is  that  this  Iris,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Crocus  and  Colchicum,  produces  no  flower  stem  above- 
ground  at  flowering  time,  a  long  perianth  tube  doing  duty 
for  it  until  the  seedpod  is  raised  up  on  the  true  stem  just 
before  the  seeds  are  ripe.  A  careful  examination  will 
show  that  this  Iris  has  a  short  scape  among  the  bases  of 
the  leaves,  and  that  in  healthy  specimens  it  is  about  half 
an  inch  in  length  and  bears  three  buds  at  its  apex. 
Scape  and  buds  are  wrapped  by  one  or  two  tough  green 
spathes,  and  each  separate  bud  has  two  more  spathes  of 
its  own,  of  thinner  texture  and  closely  wrapped  round  the 
fragile  perianth  tube.  The  central  bud  of  these  three  is 
always  first  to  lengthen  and  flower,  and  generally  is  ready 
for  picking  before  the  other  two  show  above  the  tough 
outer  spathes.  Therefore  to  avoid  picking  all  three  buds 
at  once,  and  so  wasting  the  two  undeveloped  ones,  it  is 
necessary  to  pull  away  the  two  outermost  tough  spathes 
25 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

a  little,  until  you  are  sure  you  are  holding  only  the  two 
belonging  to  the  bud  ready  to  be  gathered.  Then  a 
sharp  pull  will  generally  bring  it  away,  leaving  the  other 
two  buds  to  push  up  a  week  or  ten  days  later.  They 
sometimes  do  this  simultaneously,  and  as  it  is  not  difficult 
to  see  whether  the  central  bloom  has  been  already 
gathered,  one  can  then  allow  oneself  the  luxury  of  picking 
the  whole  stiff  bunch  of  spathes  and  buds. 

If  the  nights  are  mild  it  is  as  well  to  leave  the  buds 
on  the  plant  until  the  perianth  tube  has  lengthened 
sufficiently  to  stand  above  the  surrounding  spathes.  But 
although  the  perianth  segments  when  exposed  just  above 
the  spathes  will  safely  stand  several  degrees  of  frost,  I 
find  once  the  perianth  tube  is  out  in  the  world  and  un- 
protected, a  few  degrees  of  frost  will  render  it  transparent 
and  limp,  burst  its  cell  walls  in  fact,  and  ruin  that 
blossom's  future. 

So  in  doubtful  weather  I  prefer  to  pull  the  buds  when 
the  coloured  parts  of  the  flower  appear  just  above  the 
spathes.  I  find  it  best  to  place  them  at  once  in  water 
and  to  immerse  them  up  to  their  necks.  Then  they 
lengthen  rapidly,  and  one  by  one  burst  open  and  are 
ready  to  transfer  to  the  flower  vases.  If  placed  directly 
after  picking  in  water  that  only  reaches  an  inch  or  so  up 
their  length,  they  are  rather  inclined  to  flag  and  fall  over, 
and  even  to  get  too  much  exhausted  of  sap  to  open 
properly.  Their  own  foliage  is  rather  too  coarse  to 
arrange  with  them,  so  I  often  use  the  leaves  of  young 
plants  of  Libertia  formosa,  which  are  of  the  same  shade  of 
green  but  neater  than  the  Iris  leaves.  They  look  best 
26 


Early  Irises 


arranged  in  the  old-fashioned  tall  champagne  glasses  with 
Libertia  leaves,  but  when  they  are  plentiful  I  like  to  fill  a 
bowl  with  some  short  sprigs  of  Cypress  greenery  and 
spear  the  Irises  into  it. 

The  deepest  coloured  variety  is  known  as  speciosa,  and 
has  narrow  leaves  and  throws  its  blossoms  up  well  above 
them,  and  so  is  much  more  showy  in  the  garden  than  the 
paler  forms,  whose  broad,  arching  leaves  often  hide  the 
flowers  a  good  deal.  Also  it  seldom  flowers  before 
February,  so  that  the  blossoms  can  generally  open  and 
escape  injury  better  than  those  of  the  earlier  forms. 
Later  still  comes  the  variety  now  known  as  angustifolia, 
which  has  also  masqueraded  under  the  names  of  Eliza- 
bethae,  cretensis,  and  latterly  agrostifolia.  This  last  would 
be  a  good  name  for  it,  as  its  leaves  are  very  narrow  and 
grassy,  but  it  is  possibly  a  result  of  copying  angustifolia 
from  some  indistinct  handwriting  or  worn-out  label,  as  it 
has  no  authority  that  I  know  of  beyond  a  catalogue  or 
two  and  labels  at  shows.  Anyway,  this  narrow-leaved 
form  is  a  good  thing,  and  when  established  it  flowers  very 
freely,  and  is  a  suitable  subject  for  a  warm  nook  in  the 
rock  garden  or  at  the  foot  of  a  pedestal  or  stone  in  a 
southern  exposure.  I  grow  it  in  both  such  situations,  and 
during  March  and  April  the  clumps  frequently  open  halt 
a  dozen  or  so  of  their  showy  flowers  at  one  time.  They 
stand  up  well  among  the  leaves,  and  have  a  dainty, 
butterfly  expression  about  them  as  the  standards  arch 
outward  at  a  pleasant  angle.  They  vary  somewhat  in 
the  amount  of  white  markings  on  the  fall,  but  all  of  them 
have  far  more  white  than  other  forms  of  Iris  unguicularis, 
27 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

some  so  much  that  the  falls  appear  to  have  a  white  centre 
edged  with  a  bluish  lilac  band.  The  texture  of  the 
flowers  is  rather  firmer  and  crisper  than  in  the  larger 
varieties,  and  I  find  they  last  quite  two  or  three  days 
longer,  either  when  picked  or  when  left  in  the  open. 
These  endearing  qualities  make  them  well  worth  growing. 

I  grow  one  other  form,  but  I  do  not  care  much  for 
it.  I  got  it  first  from  Herr  Sprenger  of  Naples  as  Iris 
unguicularis,  var.  pontica,  and  lately  from  Holland  as 
/.  lazica.  It  has  wide  leaves,  which  somewhat  resemble 
those  of  Iris  foetidissima,  and  the  flowers  are  of  a  rather 
starry,  poor  form,  and  a  washy,  pinkish  lilac,  the  falls 
being  mottled  with  a  yellow  brown  much  too  freely  to 
look  clean  and  fresh.  It  has  some  rather  interesting 
botanical  characters,  such  as  a  trigonous  pedicel  and 
markedly  keeled  spathe,  but  though  I  should  be  sorry  to 
lose  the  variety  I  do  not  want  any  more  plants  of  it. 

The  growth  of  the  pollen  tube  and  its  passage  down 
the  style  must  be  as  remarkable  and  rapid  in  these  Irises 
as  in  any  known  flower.  If  you  examine  the  distance  it 
has  to  go  from  the  stigma  down  to  the  ovary  and  consider 
the  very  short  duration  of  the  blossom  you  will  readily 
see  what  I  mean.  It  is  quite  worth  while  dissecting  a 
full-blown  blossom  and  extracting  the  slender  style  from 
out  of  the  perianth  tube  to  get  an  idea  of  the  delicacy  and 
wonder  of  its  mechanism.  As  great  length  of  style  is  such 
a  marked  character  of  this  Iris  it  is  a  pity  that  Desfon- 
taine's  name  slylosa  cannot  be  maintained  for  it,  but  as 
Poiret's  Voyage  en  Barbarie,  in  which  the  first  description 
of  it  occurs,  was  published  in  1789,  his  name  of  unguicularis 
28 


Early  Irises 


must  stand  by  the  law  of  priority,  for  the  other  was  not 
published  until  nine  years  later. 

In  most  gardens  the  best  position  for  planting  a  good 
row  of  this  useful  plant  is  along  the  south  front  of  a 
greenhouse.  It  frequently  happens  that  there  is  such 
a  low  space  of  wall  quite  unutilised  where  a  narrow 
border  can  easily  be  made.  I  believe  in  planting  them 
just  after  their  flowering  season,  that  is  to  say  as  soon  as 
they  can  be  procured  in  late  April  or  May  ;  and  I  like  to 
jam  them  up  against  the  foot  of  the  wall,  pressing  the  root- 
stock  right  against  it,  as  I  believe  they  will  flower  much 
sooner  if  they  cannot  spread  out  on  both  sides. 

I  have  seen  good  results  obtained  by  raising  their  bed 
a  few  inches  and  placing  a  shallow  board  along  the  front 
of  it  to  hold  up  the  soil,  and  I  should  strongly  advise  this 
plan  in  moist  or  heavy  soils.  If  there  are  hot-water 
pipes  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall  against  which  they  are 
planted  so  much  the  better,  you  will  be  all  the  more  sure 
to  get  flowers  in  the  winter  months.  But  look  carefully 
to  the  guttering  that  almost  always  forms  a  roof  over 
their  heads  in  such  positions,  as  a  leak  into  the  heart  of 
a  clump  will  soon  destroy  it.  Another  trouble  may  arise 
from  the  melting  of  snow  on  the  glass  of  a  heated  house 
from  the  warmth  within,  and  the  consequent  drip  and 
formation  of  icicles  on  the  young  leaves.  It  is  worth 
while  to  keep  a  piece  of  board  to  lay  over  them  during 
such  times  of  trouble.  Once  planted  they  need  but  little 
care.  It  is  wise  to  pull  away  in  Spring  any  of  their  leaves 
that  have  died,  to  let  air  and  sunlight  in  to  ripen  the 
rootstock.  In  autumn  any  dead  leaves  that  have  blown 
29 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

into  their  hearts  are  best  removed  before  they  rot,  and  a 
careful  search  should  be  made  from  time  to  time  for 
slugs  and  snails,  which  are  very  fond  of  the  tender,  juicy 
buds.  By  carefully  bending  the  leaves  forward  from  the 
wall  and  peering  down  among  the  crowns  these  evil 
gasteropods  may  generally  be  discovered  ;  but  the  cater- 
pillars of  the  Yellow  Underwing  and  Angleshades  Moths 
are  more  troublesome  to  catch.  The  only  successful 
method  is  to  go  out  on  a  mild  evening  with  an  acetylene 
bicycle  lamp,  which  will  show  up  the  marauders  in  their 
true  colours. 

Patience  seems  to  be  the  only  manure  these  Irises 
need,  poor  soil  inducing  flowering  instead  of  production 
of  leaf,  and  the  older  a  clump  grows  the  better  it  flowers, 
so  long  as  it  does  not  raise  itself  too  much  out  of  the 
ground  to  be  able  to  get  nourishment  ;  but  I  have 
some  old  clumps  that  by  pressing  their  rhizomes  against 
the  wall  have  climbed  up  it  some  six  or  seven  inches  ; 
these  aspiring  individuals  flower  well,  and  I  respect  their 
ambitious  habit  so  long  as  the  leaves  look  strong  and 
vigorous  and  I  receive  my  rent  in  flowers. 

Last  winter  we  picked  about  fifty  buds  a  week  from 
the  time  the  frosts  had  killed  off  the  Asters  and  outdoor 
Chrysanthemums  until  March  brought  us  sufficient 
Daffodils  to  keep  the  dinner-table  supplied.  As  a 
producer  of  ver  perpetuum  during  the  dullest  months  of 
the  year  I  feel  sure  no  outdoor  plant  can  beat  Iris 
unguicularis. 

Next  in  order  as  bringers  in  of  Spring  among  the 
Irises  come  the  members  of  that  puzzling  little  group  of 
30 


Early  Irises 


bulbous-rooted  ones  known  as  the  reticulata  section,  from 
the  curiously  beautiful  coat  that  covers  their  corms.  This 
tunic  is  well  worth  examining  with  a  good  lens.  To  the 
naked  eye  it  looks  as  if  composed  of  parallel  strands  of 
a  towlike  substance,  but  if  pulled  away  from  the  corm 
the  strands  stretch  away  from  each  other,  and  show 
lesser  strands  branching  out  from  them  and  uniting  the 
stronger  ones,  so  that  then  it  becomes  a  veritable  net- 
work. So  many  local  forms  and  varieties  exist  in  this 
section  that  their  systematic  arrangement  is  not  easy,  and 
certain  of  them  get  chivied  about  as  varieties  of  first 
one  species,  then  of  another,  according  to  various 
authors'  views,  and  this  is  the  case  with  an  old  favourite 
of  mine.  I  used  to  call  it  Iris  reticulata,  var.  sophenensis, 
but  Mr.  Dykes,  in  his  sumptuous  new  monograph  of  the 
genus,  points  out  that  it  resembles  /.  histrioides  in  its 
manner  of  increase,  viz.  by  a  host  of  tiny  cormlets 
surrounding  the  base  of  the  parent  corm,  and  in  its  stout 
leaves  and  hasty  way  of  bursting  into  flower  soon  after 
the  leaves  and  spathes  have  pierced  through  the  ground, 
so  as  /.  histrioides,  var.  sophenensis,  it  must  now  be  known. 
If  it  flowered  at  Midsummer  we  should  either  fail  to 
notice  it  or  turn  up  our  rose  and  lily-surfeited  noses  at 
its  humble  charms,  but  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  year,  in 
old  December  or  young  January,  it  is  a  joyous  sight. 
Quite  unintentionally  it  found  its  way  into  the  cold  frames 
sacred  to  my  rarer  Crocuses,  and  at  once  showed  me 
plainly  that  it  liked  the  treatment  given  to  its  neighbours, 
by  multiplying  as  rapidly  as  the  rabbits  the  small  girl  who 
was  slow  at  sums  envied  so  much. 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

The  small  spawnlike  corms  are  but  feebly  attached  to 
the  large  central  one,  and  fall  off  so  easily  that  it  is  hard 
to  lift  the  colony  intact,  and  once  off  they  are  hard  to 
collect,  many  of  them  being  about  the  same  size  and  dingy 
colour  as  the  pupal  cocoons  of  the  common  black  ant, 
known  as  ants'  eggs  to  bird-fanciers  and  gamekeepers. 
These  soon  get  dispersed  in  the  dry  soil,  and  apparently 
every  one  grows  into  a  fair-sized  corm  with  babes  of  its 
own  before  next  lifting-time.  In  the  open  border  they  are 
rather  more  delicate,  and  require  a  very  warm,  well- 
drained  corner  and  frequent  lifting.  They  are  worth 
some  trouble,  for  the  sturdy  little  flowers  are  prettily 
shaded  with  plum-purples  and  deep  blues,  and  last  fresh 
and  fair  for  several  days,  but  they  open  so  close  to  the 
ground  that  they  are  not  suitable  for  picking,  though  a 
patch  of  a  dozen  or  so  is  worth  looking  at  in  the  rock 
garden  at  that  flowerless  time  of  year.  The  typical  form 
of  /.  histrioides  varies  a  good  deal  in  size  and  in  period  of 
flowering,  so  that  a  clump  of  it,  unless  formed  of  off- 
sets from  one  form,  will  send  up  a  flower  or  two  at  a 
time  for  some  weeks.  In  its  best  forms  it  is  very  lovely, 
and  surprisingly  large  and  blue  to  be  smiling  at  one  from 
the  surface  of  the  cold,  wet  soil  so  early  in  the  year. 

The  best  form  I  have  came  from  Messrs.  Van  Tubergen, 
who  seem  to  have  been  fortunate  in  receiving  this  superior 
variety  from  their  collector,  for  they  allow  it  to  appear  in 
their  list  without  any  additional  varietal  name,  but  I  have 
seen  it  labelled  "var.  major"  when  shown  by  others. 

It  is  not  only  larger  than  the  old  form,  but  also  earlier 
and  of  a  better  substance,  and  as  45.  will  purchase 
32 


Hybrids  of  Narcissus  triandrus 


Early  Irises 

a  dozen,  no  garden  should  be  without  a  good  clump  of  it. 
The  variety  has  never  increased  with  me  as  lavishly  as  little 
sophenensis  does,  but  then  I  have  not  tried  it  in  the  cold 
frame  which  is  the  main  source  of  my  compound  interest 
harvest  of  the  ants'  eggs  produced  by  sophenensis. 

I  do  not  believe  it  would  prove  so  prolific  as  that 
generous-minded  midget  however  it  were  treated,  for  I 
sent  a  few  corms  of  sophenensis  to  a  friend  who  gardens 
in  Cheshire,  and  she  wrote  to  tell  me  that  now  after  three 
years  they  have  grown  to  the  number  of  168.  Yet  the 
last  time  I  saw  it  shown  in  flower  at  Vincent  Square  its 
proud  owner  named  35.  6d.  as  the  price  of  its  departure 
into  other  hands. 

There  are  other  early  Irises,  but  they  are  not  found 
here,  for  I  have  been  obliged  to  renounce  as  expensive 
luxuries  needing  annual  renewal  such  delights  as  7.  histrio 
and  7.  Vartanii.  They  insist  on  producing  long  and  tender 
leaves  before  they  flower,  and  winds  and  frost  soon  take 
the  tucker  out  of  them,  and,  limp  and  browned,  they  cannot 
collect  the  necessary  carbon  dioxide  to  feed  the  plant,  and 
no  fat  corm  results  for  next  season.  Wise  old  histrioides, 
to  be  contented  with  those  stumpy,  stiff  leaves  until 
warmer  days  advise  their  lengthening  !  7.  alata  ought  to, 
and  sometimes  does,  illuminate  this  dark  spell,  but  though 
it  lives  in  sunny  rock- nooks  here  it  is  only  after  excep- 
tionally grilling  summers  that  it  plucks  up  heart  to  flower 
outside.  It  used  to  do  fairly  well  in  the  Crocus  frame, 
but  has  been  crowded  out  for  my  more  beloved  children. 

Before  the  last  lag-behind  forms  of  7.  histrioides  have 
faded,  I  look  to  some  precocious  seedling  forms  of  7. 
33  C 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

reticulata.  These  were  surprise  gifts  to  me  from  my 
garden,  spontaneous  seedlings,  unbirthday  presents,  as  the 
Red  Queen  called  such  pleasant  windfalls.  I  believe  their 
mother  was  the  dwarf,  early  plum-red  form  known  as 
Krelagei,  which  is  a  great  seeder  here,  but,  as  so  often 
happens  with  plants  that  seed  freely,  after  producing  well- 
filled  pods  it  feels  it  has  done  its  duty,  and  is  content 
to  die.  Except  for  its  precocity  in  flowering,  and  its 
motherliness,  1  do  not  greatly  care  for  this  variety,  but 
as  a  parent  I  advise  all  to  grow  it  until  they  have  a 
generation  of  its  babes  from  which  to  select  better  forms. 
Experiments  carried  out  by  Mr.  Dykes  and  others 
show  that  the  purple  red  colouring  of  Krelagei  appears 
in  self-fertilised  seedlings  of  the  deep  blue  form  known 
in  gardens  as  the  typical  reticulata.  This  dark  blue  is 
furthermore  the  rarest  colour  form  in  its  native  home, 
and  here  without  artificial  fertilisation  I  have  never  seen  it 
set  seed.  The  red  forms,  on  the  contrary,  bear  pods  in 
most  seasons  when  left  to  natural  causes  for  pollination. 
If  their  seeds  only  reproduced  the  squat,  liver-coloured 
charms  of  their  dowdy  mother  they  would  not  be  worth 
sowing.  But  among  the  gifts  of  the  gods  that  appeared 
round  my  dead-and-gone  Krelagei's  label,  then  only  its 
tombstone,  first  came  a  deep,  indigo-blue  youngster  with 
only  a  slight  improvement  in  stature,  not  a  first-class 
plant,  but  as  early  as  ever  its  mother  was,  then  came 
one  of  the  greatest  surprises  and  joys  of  this  garden,  a 
posthumous  son  and  heir  to  a  once-cherished  treasure, 
/.  reticulata,  var.  cyanea.  This  variety  cyanea  is  now 
nothing  more  than  a  mysterious  memory.  Mr.  Dykes 
34 


Early  Irises 


thinks  it  may  be  identical  with  the  form  now  known  as 
Melusine.  Both  have  "  died  on  me  "  here,  alas  :  but  as  I 
recall  them  to  mind,  I  would  gladly  get  cyanea  again,  but 
do  not  wish  for  Melusine.  Mr.  Dykes  in  the  great 
monograph,  says  of  it,  "  In  the  best  examples  the  colour 
is  an  approach  to  a  light  Cambridge  blue."  If  my  memory 
is  not  too  much  affected  by  the  weakness  which  makes 
all  long-past  summers  warm  and  sunny,  all  childish 
haunts  vast  and  magnificent,  and  in  a  fuller  development 
turns  all  passably  good-looking  grandmothers  into  noted 
beauties  of  their  day — my  cyanea  was  fit  to  compare 
with  a  turquoise,  and  taller  than  all  the  Melusines  I  see 
now.  Its  clear  blue  colouring  and  length  of  perianth 
tube  have  passed  into  my  joy  of  a  seedling,  and  so  far,  it 
has  proved  of  good  constitution,  and  has  steadily  increased. 
Please  note  that  I  have  said  "  so  far,"  for  here  I  must 
make  a  confession.  I  rather  pride  myself  on  being  free 
from  superstitions  about  most  things,  and  have  even 
lectured  at  local  debating  societies  on  the  inconsistency  of 
superstitious  fears  with  a  Christian  belief.  But  I  believe 
most  people,  though  able  to  make  light  of  certain  super- 
stitions, and  perhaps  ready  to  walk  under  ladders,  or 
dine  comfortably  though  one  of  thirteen,  yet  cannot  quite 
shake  off  some  idea,  probably  an  ingrained  result  of 
nursery  teaching,  that  it  is  just  as  well  to  avoid  giving 
and  receiving  scissors,  or  cutting  one's  nails  on  a  Friday. 
A  curious  chain  of  experiences  in  the  former  case,  and  a 
haunting  doggerel  rhyme  in  the  latter,  make  me  weak 
about  these.  My  greatest  weakness  of  all,  however,  takes 
the  form  of  an  uncomfortable  feeling,  that  the  unseen 
35 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

powers  lie  in  wait  with  trouble  or  failure  for  him  who 
boasts  of  continued  success,  just  as  surely  as  the  clerk  of 
the  weather  does  with  a  sudden  shower,  for  those  who 
venture  afield  without  mackintosh  or  umbrella. 

At  no  time  am  I  more  timid  of  these  avenging  fates 
than  when  openly  rejoicing  in  some  garden  success,  and 
more  especially  so  in  print.  So  often  has  dire  calamity, 
sudden  death,  or  uprooting  by  storm,  followed  the  publi- 
cation of  a  photograph  and  exultant  note  describing  one 
of  my  best  specimens,  not  only  with  Clematis,  and 
Mezereon,  and  such  "here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow" 
subjects,  but  with  many  steady-going  old  plants,  that  I  feel 
an  uncanny  dread  creeping  over  me,  that  unless  I  touch 
wood  in  some  way  to  disarm  the  overlooking  witch  and 
blind  the  Evil  Eye,  I  had  better  not  describe  my  successes. 
Now,  as  I  do  not  wish  for  a  blasted  heath,  or  a  landscape 
like  that  around  the  chemical  works  at  Stratford,  in  place 
of  my  crowded  old  garden,  and  as  I  always  use  a  stylo- 
graph pen  made  of  vulcanite,  and  won't  go  back  to  a 
wooden  penholder,  my  epistolary  method  of  touching 
wood  must  consist  of  an  assumed  distrust  in  the  future 
prosperity  of  my  treasures,  and  so  readers  will  please  help 
me  by  understanding  that  the  "so  fars"  and  " apparently 
establisheds "  I  must  sprinkle  among  my  descriptions  of 
flourishing  colonies  of  healthy  plants  are  amulets  designed 
to  protect  my  darlings  from  the  maw  of  the  mollusc  and 
the  blasting  of  the  bacillus. 

So  far,  then,  my  turquoise  treasure  which  I  call 
Cantab  has  thriven,  and  besides  two  clumps  here,  I  have 
been  able  to  send  it  out  a  little  way  into  the  world,  J?y 
36 


Early  Irises 


sharing  its  offsets  with  a  few  friends  whose  openly  ex- 
pressed raptures  have  convinced  me  it  would  find  a  good 
home  and  loving  care  in  their  gardens. 

I  think  it  is  one  of  the  loveliest  of  Spring  flowers,  and 
do  not  believe  it  is  only  that  sort  of  paternal  pride  vented 
in  one's  own  seedling,  that  leads  me  to  believe  it  is  of  the 
colour  of  a  Delphinium  Belladonna,  and  that  the  bee  guide 
on  the  fall  is  just  the  right  shade  of  apricot-orange  to 
attract  any  flying  insect  and  please  an  artistic  eye  with  its 
colour  contrast,  producing  much  the  same  effect  that  you 
get  in  the  deeper  colouring  of  Linaria  alpina. 

The  same  crop  of  seedlings  gave  me  a  tall  red-purple 
form,  and  yet  one  more  that,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  iden- 
tical with  that  sometimes  sold  as  /.  reticulata  major. 
These  two  last  flower  in  the  order  in  which  I  have 
placed  them,  and  are  both  somewhat  earlier  than  the 
old  garden  form,  which  is  too  well  known  to  need  my 
praise.  It  is  generally  recommended  that  they  should  be 
lifted  frequently,  and  just  after  the  leaves  have  died  down, 
to  be  stored  in  dry  sand  till  September.  But  I  found 
this  plan  unsatisfactory  when  I  tried  it,  and  prefer  to  re- 
plant them  just  as  they  are  going  out  of  flower.  The 
ground  is  generally  moist  enough  then  to  prevent  their 
flagging,  and  the  corms  grow  larger  and  stronger  for 
their  shift  to  fresh  soil,  and  also  at  that  time  of  year 
one  can  see  just  the  sort  of  place  and  neighbours  that 
will  suit  them  at  flowering  time  better  than  when  the 
autumn  plants  are  in  full  swing.  If  I  have  missed  this 
golden  opportunity  I  have  sometimes  lifted  them  in 
early  August,  but  have  then  replanted  them  within 

37 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

an  hour  or  so.  They  are  among  the  plants  that  deterio- 
rate rapidly  when  out  of  the  ground,  so  when  buying 
new  ones  it  is  as  well  to  get  them  as  early  as  possible 
after  the  bulb  lists  appear.  Although  they  bloom  with 
the  Daffodils,  some  of  the  Juno  Irises  deserve  a  place 
among  the  early  ones.  They  are  queer  creatures  with 
folded  leaves  arranged  in  two  ranks,  bulbs  that  produce 
long  storage  roots  from  their  base,  which  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  avoid  breaking  off  in  planting,  and  yet  most  essen- 
tial to  the  plant's  well-being  that  they  should  remain 
intact,  and  again  they  have  standards  that  refuse  to  stand, 
but  either  hang  downwards  or  sprawl  out  horizontally.  I 
can  think  of  no  better  word  to  express  such  unstandardly 
conduct  unless  I  draw  upon  the  forceful  legends  on  con- 
tinental railway  carriage  windows,  and  anglicise  them  into 
sporgering  and  hinauslehning.  They  appear  to  me  to 
prefer  a  stiff  bit  of  soil  to  root  into,  but  to  have  their 
bulbous  body  in  something  lighter,  and  unless  I  fuss  over 
them  they  do  not  grow  very  vigorously.  My  favourite  is 
the  variety  of  I.  persica  whose  right  name  is  stenophylla,  but 
which  often  appears  as  Heldreichii.  The  combination  of 
its  lavender-blue  groundwork  with  the  white  and  deep  ame- 
thyst purple  of  the  tips  of  the  falls  is  so  lovely,  that  I  have 
not  grudged  renewing  my  little  stock  when  bad  seasons 
have  brought  it  low.  /.  Sindjarensis  is  more  reliable  but  not 
so  lovely,  but  its  hybrid  Sind-pur  Amethyst  is  a  gem  quite 
worth  the  trouble  of  constant  lifting  and  rebedding  in  choice 
soil,  even  sand  and  leaf  of  the  best  the  garden  can  produce. 
The  most  satisfactory  here,  and  capable  of  being  left 
alone  for  several  seasons,  are  the  forms  of  /.  orchioides 
38 


Early  Irises 


and  the  closely-allied  7.  bucharica.  The  old  yellow  form 
of  orchioides  is  really  the  best,  the  white  one  having  a 
lingering  taint  of  the  hue  of  jealousy  too  much  in  evidence, 
and  the  so-called  coerulea  form  is  a  very  washy  affair  and 
no  bluer  than  a  basin  of  starch,  but  I  rather  like  sulfurea, 
its  name  being  justified  by  its  colouring. '  All  are  suitable 
for  a  sunny  slope  in  the  rock  garden,  but  if  you  have 
room  for  only  one,  choose  /.  bucharica.  It  is  a  charming 
plant  with  its  tier  upon  tier  of  paired,  gracefully  arching 
leaves,  like  some  design  for  free-hand  drawing,  and  its 
creamy-white  flowers  with  bright  yellow  falls,  and  in  my 
garden  it  is  the  strongest  and  tallest  of  the  Junos,  and 
I  think  must  rank  as  the  last  of  the  earlies. 


39 


CHAPTER   IV 

Snowdrops 

ONE  can  hardly  picture  an  English  garden  without  the 
Snowdrop.  Yet  not  only  are  we  forbidden  by  the  com- 
pilers of  lists  of  British  plants  to  say  it  is  indigenous  to 
our  woods,  but  much  has  been  written  to  prove  it  was 
but  little  known  in  our  gardens  till  well  into  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  chief  evidence  for  this  view  is  found 
in  Bacon's  omission  of  the  Snowdrop  from  his  list  of 
plants  for  the  early  months  of  the  year,  and  Johnson's 
remark,  when  editing  his  edition  of  Gerard,  published  in 
1633,  that  "some  call  them  also  Snowdrops,"  as  though 
the  plant  as  well  as  the  name  were  still  not  well  known. 
One  great  writer  on  such  subjects,  who  so  seldom  makes 
a  mistake  that  I  feel  almost  as  though  I  must  be  dream- 
ing and  ought  not  to  believe  my  own  eyes,  has  stated 
that  Gerard  omitted  the  Snowdrop  in  1597  and  Parkinson 
did  so  also  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Paradisus  in  1629, 
but  it  appears  in  both  as  Leuconium  bulbosum  praecox  minus, 
and  there  are  figures  given  in  both  books.  Anyway, 
whatever  the  seventeenth  century  gardens  contained,  I 
should  be  greatly  disappointed  if  this  twentieth  century 
one  could  not  show  me  a  Snowdrop  at  all  times  from  late 
October  until  the  advent  of  April  brings  so  many  other 
flowers  that  one  scarcely  notices  their  disappearance. 
40 


Primula  pulverulenta,  "Mrs.  Berkeley."     (See  p.  147.) 


Snowdrops 


This  garden  is  not  very  well  suited  to  Snowdrops: 
they  do  not  colonise  or  settle  down  and  require  no  further 
treatment  as  in  cooler  soils,  but  I  take  so  much  interest 
in  the  various  forms  and  seedling  varieties  that  I  have 
diligently  collected  all  I  can  get,  and  labour  earnestly 
to  keep  them  here.  Most  of  them  require  frequent 
division  and  replanting,  and  I  believe  in  doing  this  just 
as  they  are  going  out  of  flower,  and  if  the  roots  are 
not  broken  in  lifting  but  carefully  spread  out  in  their 
new  soil,  they  seem  to  gather  up  nourishment  for  the 
newly-forming  bulb  without  a  check.  The  bulb  of  a 
Snowdrop  is  well  worth  examining.  If  dug  up  and 
well  washed  at  flowering  time,  you  will  find  it  consists 
of  first  a  very  thin  brown  skin,  easily  broken  and  rubbed 
off,  leaving  a  shining,  white  surface  below,  which  is  the 
outside  of  a  thick,  fleshy  wrapping  enclosing  the  whole 
bulb,  and  having  a  small  round  opening  at  the  top,  out 
of  which  the  shoot  of  the  present  year  has  grown.  By 
carefully  slitting  one  side  of  this  white  wrapper  you 
can  peel  it  off,  and  will  see  that  it  is  about  the  same 
thickness  throughout,  and  has  an  inner  membranous 
lining  that  is  only  attached  to  it  at  the  top  and  base. 
What  remains  of  the  bulb  appears  wrapped  in  a  second 
similar  fleshy  covering,  but  by  slitting  and  removing 
this  you  will  find  that  its  inner  surface  is  three  times 
as  thick  on  one  side  of  the  bulb  as  on  the  other,  and 
the  thicker  side  is  fluted  with  nine  or  more  ridges,  which 
remind  one  of  those  on  the  corrugated  cardboard  so 
useful  for  packing  fragile  objects  (and  even  plants  for 
the  post  when  one  cannot  find  a  long  and  narrow  box 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

just  to  fit).  This  second  bulb  scale  has  an  inner  lining 
similar  to  the  first,  and  so  has  the  third  and  innermost 
one,  which  also  has  one  side  fluted  and  thicker  than  the 
other,  and  its  fluting  is  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  bulb 
to  that  of  the  second  scale.  These  three  scales  form  the 
whole  of  last  season's  bulb,  and  directly  inside  them  you 
will  find  a  long  tube,  thick  and  fleshy  below  and  gradually 
becoming  thinner  upwards,  till  it  emerges  in  the  centre  as 
the  almost  transparent  sheathing  leaf  that  wraps  round 
the  lower  part  of  the  two  real  leaves.  A  section  of  its 
base  will  show  that  it  is  of  uniform  thickness,  and  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  outer  scale  of  the  bulb,  only  a  year 
younger,  and  will  form  the  outer  scale  of  next  season's 
bulb.  Inside  this  sheath  come  the  two  leaves,  and  if  you 
can  follow  them  down  carefully  to  the  point  where  they 
join  on  to  the  base  of  the  bulb,  you  will  notice  that  one 
grows  gradually  wider  and  thicker  till  it  wraps  right 
round  the  other,  and  by  cutting  through  their  thickened 
bases  and  examining  them  with  a  lens,  traces  of  ridges 
may  be  seen,  and  also  that  one  side  is  thicker  than  the 
other.  So  we  learn  that  the  bulb  is  formed  annually  of 
the  bases  of  the  sheathing  leaf  and  the  two  true  leaves, 
which  swell  out  and  store  up  all  the  nutriment  gathered 
by  roots  and  leaves  during  the  period  of  growth.  I  do 
not  know  of  any  other  bulb  so  wonderfully  yet  simply 
constructed  from  three  pieces,  and  that  yields  up  its  secret 
so  easily  to  the  inquirer. 

Another  interesting  characteristic   of    the    Snowdrop 
that  gives  me  annual  pleasure  to  notice  is  its  method  of 
piercing  through  the  hard  ground.     The  two  leaves  are 
42 


Snowdrops 


tightly  bound  round  by  the  sheathing  leaf,  so  that  their 
tips  are  pressed  together  to  form  a  sharp  point  that  cleaves 
the  ground  and  makes  way  for  the  fragile  flower,  in  much 
the  same  way  that  you  put  your  two  hands  together  and 
hold  them  in  front  of  your  head  when  diving  into  the  water. 
The  point  of  the  uprising  Snowdrop  is  strengthened  for 
pushing  aside  stones  and  hard  substances  by  a  thickening 
of  the  tip  of  each  leaf  into  a  tough  white  cushion,  a 
plan  also  followed  by  the  leaves  of  Daffodils,  Hyacinths, 
and  many  other  bulbous  plants,  but  I  think  only  in 
Snowdrops  do  these  white  or  cream-coloured  tips  persist 
so  noticeably  in  the  full-grown  leaf. 

Forbes-Watson  has  rhapsodised  very  beautifully  about 
the  artistic  value  of  these  dots,  but  I  think  their  mechanical 
service  to  the  plant  is  their  raison  d'etre  and  perhaps 
more  admirable  side. 

There  is  much  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  watching 
the  thrusting  through  of  one's  plants  in  the  dull,  wintry 
days.  I  love  to  see  a  great  cracking  and  upheaval  of  the 
soil  as  forerunner  to  the  appearance  of  the  blunt,  white 
nose  of  a  really  strong  Eremurus  Elwesianus,  and  would  far 
rather  see  this  vegetable  mimicry  of  an  enlarged  poached 
egg  in  the  border  than  any  Venus  rising  from  the  sea.  If 
the  white,  sheathing  leaves  appear  in  this  knob-like  form 
you  know  there  is  a  good  strong  spike  below,  and  that 
forking  over  in  the  autumnal  cleaning  up  has  not  injured 
the  shoot ;  but  if  a  point  of  green  leaves  first  appears  it 
is  too  often  presage  of  a  flowerless  crown.  The  arch 
method  employed  by  many  dicotyledons  is  worth  contrast- 
ing with  the  plan  of  spearing  through  adopted  by  most 
43 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

monocotyledons.  It  is  marvellous  what  power  lies  in  a 
growing  shoot  of  a  Crocus.  It  makes  light  work  of  a 
hard,  well-rolled  gravel  path.  A  single  Crocus  leaf  is  a 
flaccid,  weak  instrument,  but  the  whole  series  of  leaves, 
varying  from  four  to  fifteen  according  to  the  species,  when 
tightly  bound  by  the  tough,  sheathing  leaves,  and  the 
sharp  and  toughened  points  of  the  true  leaves  thus  all 
brought  together,  form  almost  as  sharp  and  strong  a 
weapon  as  the  underground  shoot  of  one  of  the  running 
bamboos.  Still  more  wonderful  are  those,  mostly 
autumnal  bloomers,  that  flower  without  leaves,  for  in  their 
case  it  is  only  the  tips  of  the  sheathing  leaves  that  pierce 
the  soil,  and  once  through  into  daylight  open  a  little  way 
to  allow  the  fragile  flower-bud  to  pass  upwards.  But  this 
seems  to  me  as  child's  play  compared  with  the  task  under- 
taken by  the  Winter  Aconite,  the  Wood  Anemones,  Bon- 
gardia  Rauwolfii,  and  the  Epimediums,  which  bring  their 
flower-buds  almost  to  maturity  below  ground,  and  then 
lift  them  through  backwards  by  means  of  an  increased 
rate  of  growth  in  the  lower  portion  of  the  floral  stem  and 
the  consequent  raising  of  the  centre  of  the  arch  into 
which  they  are  bent.  It  is  the  same  method  by  which  so 
many  dicotyledons  lift  the  cotyledons  out  of  the  seed  husk, 
and  is  a  case  of  "  Don't  push,  just  shove,"  as  boys  say,  the 
top  of  the  arched  stem  being  forced  straight  ahead  until 
it  is  not  only  through  the  surface  of  the  ground  but  has  gone 
up  high  enough  to  lift  the  flower-buds  clear  of  the  soil, 
when  they  will  straighten  up,  and  further  growth  may  be 
uniform  throughout  the  length  of  the  flower-stalk. 

Certain  of  the  autumnal-flowering  Snowdrops  blossom 
44 


Snowdrops 


before  the  leaves  are  produced,  and  with  them,  as  with 
the  naked  flowering  Crocuses,  the  sheathing  leaf  opens 
the  road  to  the  surface  only,  and,  once  there,  parts  to 
allow  the  blossom  to  emerge  from  its  protection  ;  but  they 
have  not  the  same  charm  for  me  as  those  which  flower 
with  their  leaves,  looking  rather  forlorn,  hanging  above 
bare  earth.  Most  of  these  come  from  Greece,  and  one, 
Galanthus  corcyrensis,  from  Corfu,  and  are  generally  regarded 
as  forms  of  the  common  Snowdrop  G.  nivalis. 

Except  in  time  of  flowering  there  is  not  much  differ- 
ence between  them,  and  they  are  none  of  them  very  easy 
to  please,  evidently  expecting  the  winter  to  be  mild  and 
sunny  and  kind  to  their  young  leaves  in  return  for  their 
early  heralding  of  Spring.  So  they  are  only  safe  in  the 
open  in  specially  sheltered  nooks,  while  a  cold  frame  makes 
a  still  happier  home  for  them.  Galanthus  Olgae  is  the  first 
to  appear  here,  and  generally  does  so  in  the  latter  part  of 
October,  and  looks  sadly  out  of  place  at  that  season.  It 
has  been  described  as  a  species,  and  retained  as  such  by 
some  authors,  because  it  is  said  to  have  no  green  marking 
on  the  inner  segments.  But  the  original  description 
distinctly  states  that  when  dried  the  inner  segments  appear 
to  have  no  green  markings,  and  I  notice  that  in  this  form 
more  than  in  any  other  the  green  fades  to  yellow,  and 
sometimes  disappears  altogether  if  an  elderly  blossom  is 
dried.  It  has  been  rather  largely  collected  of  late  years, 
and  can  be  bought  much  more  reasonably  than  other 
autumnal  Snowdrops,  and  is  well  worth  a  trial  wherever 
a  cosy  nook  can  be  spared  to  it.  G.  Rachelae  is  my 
favourite  of  the  first  comers,  but  alas !  it  is  so  rare  that  it 
45 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

can  only  be  procured  by  love  and  not  for  money.  It  was 
found  in  Greece  by  Professor  Mahaffy  on  Mount  Hymettus 
in  1884,  and  found  a  home  with  that  kindest  of  good 
gardeners  the  late  Mr.  Burbidge,  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 
From  him  it  found  its  way  into  a  few  gardens  whose 
owners  could  love  an  autumnal  Snowdrop.  From  Mr. 
Arnott's  generous  hand  it  came  to  me,  and  I  am  glad  to 
say,  when  some  years  later  he  unfortunately  lost  his  plants, 
I  was  able  to  restore  him  of  his  own.  For  some  years  it 
seemed  to  be  very  happy  with  me  in  the  rock  garden,  and 
I  was  able  to  make  two  clumps  of  it,  then  the  larvae  of  the 
Common  Swift  Moth  (Hepialus  lupulmus),  one  of  my  worst 
enemies,  found  it  toothsome  and  hollowed  out  its  bulbs. 
One  clump  disappeared  altogether,  and  I  am  still  strug- 
gling anxiously  with  the  remnant  of  the  other,  but  hoping 
some  day  to  recover  the  lost  ground,  and  be  able  to  send 
it  still  further  afield.  When  robust  it  sends  up  two  or 
three  blossoms  from  a  strong  bulb,  and  they  are  larger  than 
those  of  any  other  early  autumnal  form,  but  for  all  that 
leafless.  I  have  a  bed  I  call  the  sand-moraine  because 
parts  of  it  are  surfaced  with  granite  chips,  and  it  is  pro- 
vided with  an  underground  pipe  for  watering,  and  because 
it  must  have  some  name,  and  further  it  is  fashionable  now 
to  call  any  bed  of  carefully-mixed,  gritty  soil  a  moraine. 
Anyway,  in  a  corner  of  this  bed  which  is  filled  with  yellow 
builders'  sand  mixed  with  a  little  good  leaf  mould,  G. 
Rachelae  has  so  far  looked  happy  again,  and  has  escaped 
gnawed  vitals.  I  have  lately  been  converted  to  this  parti- 
cular sand,  which  I  believe  is  called  yellow  builders'  sand 
by  those  who  stock  such  things,  meaning  of  course  that 
46 


Snowdrops 

the  sand  is  somewhat  yellow — not  that  the  builder  is 
a  Mongolian — but  it  is  the  old  friend  we  have  bought 
from  grocers  and  seed-merchants  as  birdcage  sand,  and 
is  really  a  reddish-orange  in  colour. 

Plants  love  it,  at  any  rate  when  new,  and  even  if  it 
deteriorates  with  age  I  hope  to  find  some  means  of 
doctoring  it  up  to  full  fertile  strength  again.  I  should 
never  have  thought  of  trying  Snowdrops  in  it  but  for  Mr. 
Wilks's  kindness  in  letting  me  dig  up  a  fine  specimen  of 
Galanthus  Allenii  from  his  garden  for  me  to  figure  ;  and 
when  I  saw  how  clean  its  bulb  looked,  and  how  strong 
and  fair  were  its  roots  in  that  sandy  soil,  I  resolved  it 
should  go  into  this  newly-made  sand-moraine,  and  its 
apparent  content  there  has  caused  other  kinds  to  gather 
round  about  it.  G.  octobrensis  behaved  badly  here,  and 
flowered  later  and  later  each  season,  until  it  became 
merged  with  the  ordinary  Snowdrop.  I  had  hoped  it 
would  have  continued,  and  after  becoming  the  latest  of  all 
would  go  on  until  it  was  a  summer  flowerer,  and  then 
come  round  to  October  again,  but  it  has  never  done  so. 
G.  byzantinus  is  my  great  link  between  Autumn  and  Spring. 
It  is  interesting  as  being  a  supposed  natural  hybrid 
between  Elwesii  and  plicatus,  having  the  flowers  of  the 
former  with  their  extra  basal  green  spot,  and  the  folded- 
edged  leaf  of  the  latter.  I  find  that  freshly-imported 
bulbs,  if  planted  as  soon  as  received,  generally  in  August, 
will  give  a  succession  of  flowers  from  November  to 
February.  Some  of  the  earliest  flowering  forms  I  have 
removed  to  the  rock  garden,  and  I  find,  though  not  so 
early  as  in  their  first  season,  yet  they  have  been  in  flower 
47 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

before  Christmas  for  the  last  four  years.  So  every  year  I 
like  to  buy  a  few  hundred  collected  bulbs  to  make  fresh 
colonies,  and  enjoy  their  early  flowers.  G.  Elwesti,  though 
not  quite  so  early,  yet  will  make  a  fair  show  in  December 
if  planted  as  soon  as  the  bulbs  are  imported  in  August  or 
September.  Until  I  bought  and  planted  them  so  early  in 
the  season  I  never  had  much  success  with  either  of  these, 
but  last  season  a  three-year-old  planting  had  not  only 
increased  well  by  offsets  but  seedlings  appeared  in  most 
promising  profusion,  and  especially  round  the  byzantinus 
parents.  Before  the  old  year  has  gone  I  look  for  G.  cilicicus 
to  be  showing  buds  at  least.  It  is  a  tall,  slender  form  of 
G.  nivalis,  with  very  glaucous  leaves.  Although  described 
in  catalogues  as  November  flowering,  I  do  not  get 
blossoms  here  until  late  December  or  January,  and  expect 
it  is  only  newly-imported  bulbs  that  flower  in  November.1 
It  was  especially  good  in  the  winter  of  1911-12,  as  though 
it  appreciated  the  extra  cooking  it  got  that  summer. 

Between  Christmas  and  the  New  Year  I  like  to  clean 
up  some  corners  where  I  have  clumps  of  a  very  fine  form 
of  the  Neapolitan  Snowdrop,  G.  Imperati.  I  believe  it  to 
be  the  one  that  should  be  called  var.  Atkinsit,  after  its 
introducer,  Mr.  Atkins,  of  Panswick  in  Gloucestershire, 
whose  name  lives  also  in  the  fine  garden  form  of  Cyclamen 
ibericum  known  as  Atkinsii.  Canon  Ellacombe  gave  me 
this  Snowdrop  and  quite  half  of  my  garden  treasures 
besides,  and  it  is  one  of  the  floral  treats  of  the  year  to  see 
it  in  January  growing  over  a  foot  high  under  the  south 

1  G.  cilicicus  has  given  me  the  lie,  as  plants  love  to  do,  by  opening  several 
Bowers  on  the  3oth  November  1913  on  clumps  undisturbed  for  three  years. 
48 


Narcissus,  Grand  Monarque.      I5y  E.  Kortescue  Brickdale 


Snowdrops 


wall  at  Bitton.  As  I  have  neither  the  soil,  climate,  nor 
south  wall  of  Bitton  to  give  it,  it  is  never  quite  so  fine 
here,  but  every  season  when  I  see  it  reappear  I  hail  it  as 
one  of  the  finest  if  not  the  loveliest  of  all  Snowdrops. 
The  outer  segments  are  wonderfully  long  and  very  perfect 
in  shape,  making  the  flower  resemble  a  pear-shaped  pearl, 
and  it  stands  up  well  except,  of  course,  during  days  of  keen 
frost.  Very  near  to  it  in  early  flowering  and  stature,  but 
falling  short  in  symmetry,  is  a  form  that  I  believe  should 
be  known  by  the  rather  House-that- Jack-built  sort  of 
name  of  G.  Imperati,  var.  Atkinsii  of  Backhouse.  It  is  a 
fine  thing,  but  very  seldom  produces  a  perfectly  sym- 
metrical flower,  for  either  one  of  the  inner  segments  is  as 
long  as  the  outer  ones,  or  there  are  four  outer  segments, 
or  yet  again  a  petaloid  bract  may  appear  just  below  the 
ovary  but  not  quite  so  purely  white  as  the  flower  proper, 
and  all  these  vagaries  give  a  clump  rather  an  untidy 
appearance  when  looked  at  closely.  I  find  it  hard  to  say 
which  I  consider  the  most  beautiful  Snowdrop,  and 
should  pick  out  four  as  candidates  for  the  prize,  but  I  have 
never  ranged  them  all  four  together  for  comparison,  so 
when  I  look  at  any  one  of  them  I  wonder  whether  the 
others  can  possibly  be  more  beautiful.  I  think  if  only  I 
could  grow  it  here  as  I  once  received  it  for  figuring  straight 
from  its  home  in  Ireland,  the  Straffan  Snowdrop  would 
win  the  golden  apple.  It  is  a  Crimean  form,  and  like  its 
relations  bears  two  flowers  from  each  strong  bulb,  one 
rather  earlier  and  taller  than  the  other.  It  is  a  fine  large 
form,  but  so  beautifully  proportioned  that  it  is  not  a  bit 
coarse  or  clumsy,  as  I  think  some  of  the  very  globose 
49  D 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

forms  of  G.  Elwesii  are.  It  is  known  botanically  as 
G.  caucasicus  grandis,  and  is  a  late  flowering  form  of  the 
Caucasian  form  of  nivalis.  It  was  brought  to  Straff  an  by 
Lord  Clarina  on  his  return  from  the  Crimean  War  together 
with  bulbs  of  G.  plicafus,  which  was  the  Snowdrop  that 
spoke  so  sweetly  of  home  to  our  soldiers  when  the  Spring 
melted  the  snow  and  the  trenches  were  covered  with  white 
blossoms  instead.  Lovely  grandis  has  never  been  really 
comfortable  here,  and  I  fear  is  decreasing  in  numbers, 
though  its  few  flowers  were  very  lovely  last  March. 

As  this  beauty  returns  my  affection  and  care  so 
coldly  I  turn  to  a  more  generous-natured  form  which 
the  late  Mr.  Neill  Eraser  sent  me  without  a  name,  so 
shortly  before  his  death  that  my  letter  of  thanks  and 
inquiries  was  too  late  to  bring  an  answer.  The  bulb 
he  gave  me  has  grown  so  well  that  I  am  now  re- 
minded of  his  pleasant  friendship  from  several  corners 
of  the  garden,  but  the  original  clump  is  the  best  placed. 
It  is  at  the  foot  of  a  large  bush  of  Erica  scoparia,  a 
heath  seldom  seen  in  English  gardens,  as  it  has  little  to 
recommend  it  save  a  very  graceful  habit  and  good  ever- 
green colour,  the  flowers  being  very  inconspicuous,  small, 
and  of  a  brownish  green,  but  an  interesting  plant,  as  it 
is  one  of  the  species  of  heath  which  produce  burrs  or 
knots  on  the  roots,  and  though  the  best  are  those  from 
E.  arborea,  in  the  Landes  district  (where  E.  scoparia  is 
very  plentiful)  its  root-burrs  are  collected  and  exported 
for  making  the  pipes  known  here  as  briar-root  pipes,  a 
corruption  of  the  French  name  Bruyere.  I  grubbed  up 
my  plant  in  the  woods  round  Arcachon,  and  though  I 
5° 


Snowdrops 

tried  many  that  looked  like  removable  seedlings,  it  was 
some  time  before  I  hit  upon  one  that  had  not  a  root 
fit  for  a  pipe-factory  with  many  large  knobs  already 
formed,  and  even  if  such  as  these  were  likely  to  live  I 
jibbed  at  the  postage  I  should  have  to  pay.  Now,  twenty 
years  after,  it  is  a  fine  bush  five  feet  in  height,  and  at 
its  feet  and  under  its  spread  my  souvenir  of  Patrick 
Neill  Fraser  attracts  everyone  in  February  more  than  any 
other  Snowdrop  clump  in  the  garden.  I  take  it  to  be  a 
hybrid,  and  the  parents  probably  nivalis  and  some  form  of 
caucasicus.  It  is  rounder  in  flower  than  the  Straffan  one, 
but  has  much  the  same  graceful  outline  on  a  slightly 
smaller  scale,  but  has  not  inherited  the  Crimean  character 
of  bearing  a  second  flower  from  each  pair  of  leaves.  It  is 
at  its  best  as  the  Ditto n  Imperati  is  going  over,  and  while 
the  Straffan  princess  is  still  a  sleeping  beauty,  so  these 
three  can  reign  as  queen  each  for  her  season. 

The  fourth  claimant  may  not  appeal  to  everyone, 
for  it  is  somewhat  of  a  freak,  the  best-known  of  the 
so-called  white  Snowdrops,  which  means  the  flowers 
have  little  or  no  green  marking  on  them.  It  is  known 
as  G.  nivalis  poculiformis,  and  appears  now  and  then 
among  the  typical  common  Snowdrops.  It  originated  at 
Dunrobin  among  seedlings  raised  by  Mr.  Melville,  who 
kindly  sent  me  plants  of  it.  It  is  inclined  to  revert 
to  the  normal  form,  but  when  a  flower  is  as  it  should 
be,  it  makes  up  for  a  few  lopsided  ones.  The  inner 
segments  should  be  long  and  pure  white  just  like  the 
outer  ones,  and  in  this  condition  it  is  very  graceful 
when  half  expanded,  as  without  the  usual  stiff  green- 
Si 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

spotted  petticoat  to  hide  the  golden  anthers  they  show 
out  more,  and  set  off  the  purity  of  the  six  equal  seg- 
ments. It  is  a  lowly  gem,  but  it  is  worth  bending 
one's  back  and  knees  to  enjoy  it  from  its  own  level, 
rather  than  playing  King  Cophetua.  In  fact,  no  Snow- 
drop looks  so  well  plucked  as  growing,  unless  one  cuts 
it  off  at  ground  level,  so  preserving  it  between  its  twin 
leaves  and  bound  by  the  sheathing  leaf,  and  Heaven 
forbid  I  should  so  treat  and  sacrifice  poculiformis.  Mr. 
Allen  raised  an  interesting  seedling  from  it,  which  he 
called  Virgin.  The  inner  segments  are  about  two-thirds 
the  length  of  the  outer,  and  curiously  shaped,  their 
sides  being  rolled  and  forming  two  semi-cylindrical  tubes 
with  the  tips  bent  inwards,  and  the  usual  green  horse- 
shoe mark  is  reduced  to  two  round  green  specks  ;  it  is 
curious  and  interesting,  but  not  so  beautiful  as  its  mother. 
One  Snowdrop  time,  when  Mr.  Farrer  was  here,  he 
astounded  me  by  scorning  the  charms  of  poculiformis, 
even  of  a  perfectly-formed  blossom,  because  he  said 
he  possessed  a  much  larger,  taller,  and  finer  form, 
also  earlier  in  flowering,  and  therefore  over  for  that 
season,  so  I  bottled  up  my  curiosity  for  eleven  months 
until,  in  the  following  year,  he  bade  me  make  pil- 
grimage to  Ingleborough  and  see  the  marvel.  It  was 
a  long,  cold  journey,  and  how  I  hated  it !  but  at  last, 
on  my  knees  before  the  object,  I  felt  well  rewarded, 
for  it  was  a  fine  form  of  G.  Elwesii  that  had  poculiformed 
itself  with  great  success.  Moreover,  it  had  increased  to 
an  extent  that  permitted  of  division,  and  my  kind  host 
and  I  dug  it  up,  replanting  the  bulbs  with  great  care, 
52 


Snowdrops 

with  the  exception  of  one  fine  specimen,  with  which  he  sent 
me  home  rejoicing.  Both  our  gardens  have  benefited 
(so  far,  of  course)  by  this  replanting.  He  tells  me  his 
have  been  much  finer  ever  since,  and  mine  was  re- 
planted and  spread  out  a  little  this  February.  It  has  a 
solid,  waxy  white  flower  of  great  beauty,  not  so  dainty 
as  the  nivalis  form,  and  of  rather  a  colder  or  greener 
white,  but  is  a  noble  and  early  white  Snowdrop. 

Yellow  Snowdrops  sound  abominable,  and  look  some- 
what sickly  when  the  blossoms  are  young,  for  the  green 
of  the  ovary  and  inner  segments  is  replaced  by  a  rather 
straw-coloured  yellow ;  but  on  a  sunny  day  a  well- 
expanded  bloom,  showing  the  yellow  glow  that  the  mark- 
ings lend  to  the  inside  of  the  flower,  is  not  to  be 
despised,  and  makes  an  interesting  change  from  the 
green  and  white  garb  of  the  rest  of  the  family.  The 
best  known  is  lutescens,  a  form  of  nivalis,  but  a  larger 
and  more  robust  form  is  called  flavescens.  Both  were 
found  in  gardens  in  Northumberland,  the  first  by  Mr. 
Sanders  and  the  other  by  Mr.  W.  B.  Boyd,  who  has 
a  better  collection  of  Snowdrops  and  knows  more  about 
them  than  anyone  else.  To  his  generosity  I  am  in- 
debted for  roots  of  the  lovely  double-yellow  one  which 
was  found  in  a  garden  near  Crewe,  a  loosely-formed, 
graceful  double,  with  the  usual  markings  of  the  inner 
segments  of  a  good  bright  yellow,  and  a  very  charming 
thing  when  looked  full  in  the  face. 

It  seems  to  revert  occasionally  to  its  ancestral  green 
markings,  and  I  was  rather  dismayed  to  see  so  much 
green  where  I  looked  for  yellow  this  season,  but  Mr. 
53 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Boyd  tells  me  it  behaves  similarly  with  him  after  removal, 
but  after  a  season  or  two  repays  patience  with  pure  gold. 

Green  Snowdrops  suggest  the  dyed  atrocities  seen  in 
continental  flower-markets,  and  even  our  own  streets  at 
times,  whose  unopened  buds  have  been  placed  in  ink 
instead  of  water,  and  so  forced  to  drink  up  the  dye  and 
fill  their  vessels  with  gaudy  hues  foreign  to  their  nature. 
But  several  Snowdrops  have  chosen  to  add  to  their 
greenness  by  natural  means.  One  of  these  is  a  charming 
little  plant.  It  appeared  in  the  Vienna  Botanical  Garden, 
and  from  thence  travelled  into  Max  Leichtlin's  garden  at 
Baden  Baden,  that  wonderful  centre  of  distribution  for 
rare  plants  which,  alas !  is  now  a  thing  of  the  past.  It  is 
said  that  he  sent  two  bulbs  to  England,  one  to  Mr. 
Harpur-Crewe,  the  other  to  Mr.  Allen,  and  I  believe  all 
that  exist  over  here  now  are  descendants  of  that  brace 
of  bulbs.  It  is  known  as  virescens,  and  thought  to  be  a 
variety  of  G.  caucasicus,  though  except  that  it  flowers  very 
late  in  the  season  it  has  no  character  that  I  can  recog- 
nise as  connecting  it  with  that  tall  Russian.  It  is  a  very 
dwarf  form,  with  glaucous  leaves  and  stem,  and  the  outer 
segments  of  the  flower  are  striped  from  their  junction 
with  the  ovary  for  two-thirds  of  their  length  with  a 
delicate  duck's-egg  green,  and  the  inner  segments  are 
wholly  green,  except  for  a  narrow  white  margin  that 
gives  a  delightful  finish  and  charm  to  a  very  lovely 
flower.  Better  known  is  a  very  curious  freak  form  of  G. 
nivalis,  which  was  found  in  a  wood  in  Western  Prussia 
and  named  G.  Scharlokii  by  Prof.  Caspary  of  Konigsberg 
after  its  discoverer.  Its  claim  to  greenness  rests  in  a 
patch  of  short  green  strips  on  the  tips  of  the  outer  seg- 
54 


Snowdrops 


ments,  but  its  chief  peculiarity  is  the  very  curious  pair  of 
leafy  spathes  that  replace  the  narrow  green  keels  with 
their  membranous  connective  that  are  common  to  all  other 
Snowdrops.  In  G.  Scharlokii,  these  queer  little  leaves 
stand  up  and  spread  out  over  the  flower  with  an  expres- 
sion like  that  of  hares'  ears.  In  some  seasons  a  number  of 
the  flowers  may  have  the  leafy  spathes  partially  united, 
even  for  about  half  their  length,  and  then  after  a  year 
or  two  all  may  be  divided  to  the  base  again.  Mr.  Allen 
raised  some  seedlings  that  showed  a  slight  inheritance 
of  these  characters,  but  they  are  not  improvements :  one 
of  them  is  a  double  flowered  form,  and  I  think  quite  the 
ugliest  Snowdrop  I  possess,  only  having  enough  sugges- 
tion of  green  on  the  outer  segments  to  make  it  look  dingy. 
I  have  also  a  form  known  as  Ward  which  has  the 
green-tipped  segments  without  the  leafy  spathes,  and  is 
rather  pretty.  The  greenest  of  all  I  have  saved  to  the 
last,  a  double  green  Snowdrop  that  doesn't  hang  its  head, 
which  sounds  what  children  call  "  perfectly  hijjous,"  but 
I  assure  you  it  has  a  quiet  beauty  and  charm  of  its  own. 
One  might  not  wish  for  a  bouquet  of  it,  or  to  decorate 
a  dinner-table  with  nothing  else,  but  when  Mr.  Boyd 
kindly  sent  it  to  me  I  greatly  enjoyed  examining  and 
painting  it,  and  am  very  proud  of  possessing  so  great  a 
rarity.  It  was  found  at  Ashiesteel  near  Melrose,  in  a 
garden  where  no  Snowdrops  but  the  common  G.  nivalis 
are  grown,  so  its  peculiarities  must  be  entirely  its  own 
invention,  a  parallel  case  to  that  of  the  small  girl  charged 
with  biting,  scratching,  and  spitting  at  her  dear  kind  nurse, 
who  in  answer  to  Mother's  explanation  that  such  be- 
haviour was  very  bad  as  being  put  into  her  head  by  the 
55 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Devil,  replied,  "  Perhaps  the  biting  and  scratching  were, 
but  I  assure  you  the  spitting  was  entirely  my  own  inven- 
tion." But  it  is  a  very  curious  case  of  a  sudden  mutation, 
for  every  one  of  the  segments  have  become  long  and 
narrow  and  heavily  striped  with  green  as  bright  as  that  of 
the  leaves.  The  outer  segments  are  slightly  longer  than 
the  inner,  which  still  retain  the  emarginate  apex,  to  drift 
into  botanical  terms,  but  in  more  ordinary  English,  the  little 
snick  round  which  the  green  horseshoe  mark  is  generally 
found.  The  whorls  of  these  segments  occur  fairly  regu- 
larly and  alternately  till  a  tassel-like  flower  is  formed,  but 
instead  of  hanging  as  tassels,  and  good  little  Snowdrops 
should,  it  holds  its  head  up  with  a  "bragian  boldness" 
unsurpassed  even  by  Bailey  Junior. 

I  have  a  pretty  form  of  G.plicatus  with  green  markings  on 
the  outer  segments,  and  have  had,  and  heard  of,  similar  va- 
garies in  forms  of  Elwesii,  and  Mr.  Allen  had  some  very  well- 
spotted  forms  of  Fasten,  so  green  spots  evidently  run  in  the 
family,  and  encourage  the  idea  that  perhaps  a  cross  between 
a  Snowdrop  and  the  Spring  Snowflake  might  be  possible. 

Many  of  the  species  hybridise  freely,  and  some  beauti- 
ful seedlings  were  raised  by  the  late  Mr.  Allen  of  Shepton 
Mallett.  Unfortunately  many  of  these  have  quite  died  out, 
and  are  only  known  from  the  mention  of  their  names  in 
his  paper  on  Snowdrops  in  the  R.  H.  S.  Journal  of  August 
1891,  in  many  cases,  alas!  without  any  description. 
These  seedlings  were  never  distributed  by  the  nurserymen, 
and  so  are  only  to  be  found  in  a  few  gardens  of  the  per- 
sonal friends  of  Mr.  Allen,  and  as  I  began  collecting  this 
family  too  late  to  get  in  touch  with  him  I  am  indebted  to  the 
kindness  of  his  friends  for  most  of  my  varieties.  I  think 
56 


Snowdrops 


Robin  Hood  is  one  of  the  best  of  his  hybrids ;  it  is  Elwesii 
X  plicatus,  and  a  fine  bold  flower  with  a  great  deal  of  deep 
green  on  the  inner  segments.  Galatea  is  a  very  well- 
formed,  glistening  white  seedling,  apparently  nivalis  x  plicatus. 
A  distinct  one  is  Magnet,  in  which  the  pedicel  is  very  long 
and  slender,  and  the  large  nivalis-formed  flowers  hang  and 
sway  in  the  breeze  in  a  way  that  reminds  one  of  a 
Dierama.  He  also  raised  a  double  form  with  the  same 
peculiarity  of  a  long  foot-stalk  that  I  like  very  much,  be- 
cause, like  another  of  his  doubles  called  Charmer,  there 
are  no  more  than  three  outer  segments,  the  doubling 
consisting  entirely  of  a  neat  rosette  of  inner  segments, 
instead  of  the  mixed  muddle  of  inner  and  outer  segments 
found  in  the  ordinary  double  form  of  G.  nivalis.  The 
beautiful  G.  Allenii  named  after  him  is  a  wild  species,  and 
very  remarkable  for  its  immense  leaves,  which  at  maturity 
measure  about  a  foot  in  length  and  an  inch  and  a  half  in 
width.  When  the  flower  is  at  its  best  they  are  much  shorter, 
however,  but  even  when  first  they  unfold  they  look  more 
like  the  leaves  of  some  Tulip  than  of  any  Snowdrop.  The 
flower  is  very  round  in  form  and  of  a  good  size,  though 
not  in  proportion  to  the  promise  of  the  leaves — for  then 
it  would  have  to  be  as  large  as  a  good-sized  Daffodil. 

There  is  more  than  one  form  of  this  species,  and 
I  have  some  that  it  is  hard  to  decide  whether  they  should 
be  placed  as  varieties  of  Allenii  or  of  the  much  smaller  but 
similarly-shaped  G.  latifolius,  a  dull  little  thing  that  might  be 
attractive  if  it  could  be  induced  to  flower  more  freely. 
The  leaves  have  a  very  cheery  appearance,  being  very 
bright  green  and  beautifully  polished,  but  here  the  flowers 
are  always  few,  and  too  insignificant  for  the  foliage.  There 
57 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

is  another  broad-leaved  Snowdrop,  G.  Ikariae  from  the 
Island  of  Nikara,  which  is  a  much  better  thing,  and 
valuable  as  being  one  of  the  latest  to  flower.  Its  broad, 
glossy  leaves  look  as  though  they  belong  to  some  species 
of  Scilla,  but  are  charming  in  the  way  they  curve  outwards 
and  set  off  the  large  flowers,  which  are  of  a  very  pure 
white,  and  have  a  particularly  effective,  large  green  spot  on 
the  inner  segments.  In  one  part  of  the  garden  it  is  sowing 
itself  freely,  and  I  hope  for  great  things  from  these  babes  in 
years  to  come.  I  think  it  likes  a  warmer  situation  than 
most  other  Snowdrops,  except  perhaps  G.  Imperati,  for  both 
of  these  do  best  under  a  south  wall  or  in  a  very  sunny  spot. 
I  have  never  seen  more  than  one  variety  of  it,  that  is 
an  early  flowering  seedling  with  deeper  coloured  leaves 
that  appeared  under  the  celebrated  south  wall  at  Bitton. 
A  bulb,  kindly  given  to  me  by  Canon  Ellacombe,  has  re- 
tained its  character  here,  and  is  always  over  before  the 
true  Ikariae  is  out.  By  the  side  of  this  in  the  rock  garden 
I  grow  another  beautiful  seedling  given  me  by  Mr.  Elwes, 
who  found  it  among  a  group  of  G.  Elwesii  at  Colesborne. 
I  call  it  Colesborne  Seedling,  and  believe  it  must  be  a 
hybrid  between  Elwesii  and  caucasicus,  as  it  has  the  inner 
segments  marked  with  the  second  green  spot  of  the  former 
but  has  the  leaves  of  the  latter.  The  flowers  are  very 
large  and  of  a  fine  globose  form,  but  it  has  too  short 
a  stem  to  lift  them  up  sufficiently,  otherwise  I  should  rank 
it  among  the  most  beautiful  of  all.  I  suppose  I  must  not 
linger  much  longer  over  my  beloved  Snowdrops,  nor 
mention  all  the  forms  I  grow,  but  must  say  a  word 
in  praise  of  a  few  more.  One  of  these  is  G.  nivalis 
58 


Snowdrops 

Melvillei,  another  Dunrobin  Snowdrop,  and  named  after  its 
raiser.  It  is  a  very  well-shaped,  round  flower,  but  still 
quite  of  the  nivalis  type,  and  very  slightly  marked  with 
green  ;  in  fact  in  one  form  I  have,  sent  to  me  by  Mr. 
Melville,  the  horseshoe  has  disappeared,  leaving  in  its 
place  only  the  heads  of  two  of  its  nails,  little  round  green 
dots  on  each  side  of  the  nick.  It  is  a  dwarf  form,  but  so 
sturdy  that  it  lasts  a  very  long  time  in  flower.  Dwarfer 
still  is  a  curious  seedling  of  Elwesii  that  my  own  garden 
gave  me.  When  first  it  begins  to  flower  the  immense  glo- 
bular flowers  are  borne  on  such  short  stems  that  when  the 
buds  hang  free  from  the  goldbeater-skin  covering  of  the 
spathe,  their  tips  rest  on  the  ground,  but  later  the  stems 
lengthen  and  lift  them.  Mr.  Farrer  suggested  the  name 
of  "  Fat  Boy  "  for  it,  when  he  first  saw  its  solid  obesity, 
and  it  now  behaves  as  strangely  in  his  rock  garden  in 
Yorkshire  as  it  does  here.  The  most  curious  thing  about 
it  is  that  it  produces  three  and  sometimes  four  flowers 
from  between  each  pair  of  leaves,  and  these  follow  each 
other,  and  each  succeeding  one  is  lifted  on  a  taller  stem  above 
the  swelling  ovary  of  the  last  and  now  fading  flower.  So 
that  it  begins  as  a  dwarf  early  form  and  ends  as  a  tall  and 
late  one.  Among  some  imported  bulbs  of  Elwesii  I  picked 
out  a  very  late  flowering  one ;  I  see  by  the  figure  I  made 
of  it  that  it  was  on  the  6th  of  March  1906.  It  was  also 
very  large,  and  had  the  second  green  spot  converted  into 
a  band  across  the  centre  of  the  inner  segment.  This  one 
bulb  has  flowered  every  year  until  this,  but  has  made  no  in- 
crease, and  in  some  seasons  the  flower  has  lasted  quite  fresh 
into  April,  being  the  latest  of  all  my  Snowdrops.  This  year 
59 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

I  noticed  it  had  failed  to  open  its  flower-bud,  so  I  dug  it 
up  to  see  what  was  wrong,  and  found  some  evil  under- 
ground grub  (the  Swift  Moth,  probably)  had  tunnelled  right 
through  it.  I  much  doubt  whether  it  can  possibly  recover 
after  such  an  injury,  and  I  shall  have  to  rely  upon  one  of 
Mr.  Allen's  plicatus  seedlings  called  Belated  to  keep  up  my 
Snowdrop  supply  from  October  to  April  by  filling  up  the  last 
fortnight  after  G.  Ikariaehzs  turned  its  attention  to  seedpods. 

The  Spring  Snowflake  is  so  nearly  a  Snowdrop  and 
flowers  with  the  later  ones  that  I  shall  praise  it  here. 
My  favourite  form  is  that  known  to  science  as  Leucoium 
vernunt,  var.  Vagneri,  but  which  lies  hidden  in  catalogues 
and  nurseries  as  carpathicum.  Both  are  larger,  more 
robust  forms  than  ordinary  vernutn,  and  strong  bulbs 
give  two  flowers  on  each  stem,  but  whereas  carpathicum 
has  yellow  spots  on  the  tips  of  the  segments,  Vagneri  has 
inherited  the  family  emeralds.  It  is  an  earlier  flowering 
form  than  vernum,  and  a  delightful  plant  to  grow  in  bold 
clumps  on  the  middle  slopes  of  the  flatter  portions  of  the 
rock  garden.  Plant  it  deeply  and  leave  it  alone,  and  learn 
to  recognise  the  shining  narrow  leaves  of  its  babes,  and  to 
respect  them  until  your  colony  is  too  large  for  your  own 
pleasure,  and  you  can  give  it  away  to  please  others. 

L.  Hernandezii,  also  known  as  L.  pulchellum,  has  won  a 
place  in  my  affections  by  its  useful  preference  for  wet  feet. 
Like  the  larger  and  finer,  but  later  L.  aestivum,  it  thrives 
well  on  the  very  edge  of  water,  and  looks  so  much  better 
there  than  anywhere  else,  that  I  advise  such  a  planting. 
Hernandezii  flowers  over  a  long  period,  throwing  up  a  succes- 
sion of  flower-stems,  and  it  comes  in  Daffodil  days,  at  a  time 
60 


Snowdrops 

when  other  white  water-side  flowers  are  asleep.  A  clump 
of  it  that  has  been  slightly  overrun  by  our  beautiful 
evergreen  Sedge,  Cladium  mariscus,  makes  a  pretty  picture 
every  Spring,  growing  an  extra  few  inches  under  shelter 
of  the  Cladium.  How  seldom  one  sees  this  grand  plant 
in  a  garden,  and  I  think  no  nurseryman  stocks  it.  Yet 
there  are  acres  of  it  in  the  Norfolk  Broads,  and  half  of 
Wicken  Fen  is  full  of  it — too  full  for  my  taste,  for  it  is 
only  fed  upon  by  one  of  the  rare  insects  of  the  district, 
and  crowds  out  reed  and  other  suitable  food  plants,  and 
seems  to  be  increasing  rather  fast  in  the  fen.  My  plants  I 
hauled  up  and  lugged  home  from  Norfolk — not  a  very  easy 
job,  as  I  was  entomologising  at  the  time,  and  a  pocket-knife 
and  my  own  fingers  were  my  only  digging  weapons,  whilst 
its  root  system  is  a  wide-spreading  mass  of  the  toughest 
fibres,  interlaced  with  those  of  every  imaginable  sedge  and 
rush  and  weed.  Once  home  it  made  up  for  all  pains  of 
transit,  and  its  great  arching  leaves  are  a  rich  green 
throughout  the  year,  unlike  those  of  any  other  water-side 
plant,  resembling  some  extra  fine  Pampas-Grass.  With  the 
exception  of  the  New  Zealand  Arundo  conspicua,  which  alas  ! 
is  none  too  hardy  here  in  wet  places,  nor  too  vigorous  in 
dry  ones,  Cladium  the  Fen  Sedge  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the 
only  truly  evergreen  plant  of  similar  bold  grassy  habit,  fit 
for  the  water-side.  The  effect  of  its  deep  green  among 
the  tawny  browns  of  reeds  and  bulrushes  in  autumn  and 
winter  is  very  fine.  Nurserymen  take  note,  also  take  a 
holiday  in  the  Broads,  take  a  spade  and  a  sack,  and  make 
a  fortune  out  of  three-and-sixpenny  snippets  in  thumb-pots 
of  Cladium  mariscus. 

61 


CHAPTER  V 

Spring   Crocuses 

FOR  me,  starting  this  chapter,  there  are  great  searchings 
of  heart,  compared  with  which  those  of  the  divisions  of 
Reuben  were  as  nothing.  If  but  one  of  them  possessed  a 
flat  object  with  diverse  and  recognisable  sides  to  it  they 
might  toss  up  and  decide  whether  to  go  and  help  smash 
up  Sisera  or  stay  and  listen  to  the  music  of  their  baa- 
lambs, and  they  seem  to  have  decided  pretty  unanimously 
for  the  ovine  concert.  But  for  me,  the  very  inmost  cockle 
of  whose  heart  glows  more  for  a  Crocus  than  for  the  most 
expensive  Orchid,  every  cockle  in  me  (though  I  haven't  a 
notion  what  portion  of  my  internal  anatomy  is  meant  by 
that  borrowed  appellation  of  marine  molluscs)  is  full  of 
searchings  and  divisions  how  to  do  justice  to  my  first 
garden  love  and  avoid  wearying  and  driving  away  readers 
to  whom  my  raptures  may  appear  the  vapourings  of  a 
love-sick  monomaniac. 

We  treat  Crocuses  au  grand  se'rteux  in  this  garden, 
giving  over  two  double-light  frames  to  their  service  in  the 
very  sunniest  part  of  the  kitchen  garden,  and  we  always 
have  two  sets  of  pots  sunk  in  ashes  containing  the  seeds  or 
seedlings  of  two  past  seasons,  finding  that  method  the  best 
way  to  prevent  the  worm  who  will  turn  from  waltzing  the 
seeds  of  one  variety  into  the  middle  of  a  patch  of  another, 
62 


Spring  Crocuses 


as  invariably  happens  when  they  are  sown  in  parallel  lines 
in  open  ground.  Also  Crocus  seedlings  have  a  habit  of 
descending  about  an  inch  each  season,  and  not  always 
perpendicularly.  Their  method  of  obtaining  what  Maud's 
young  man  desired  in  his  delirium  is  curious  and  worth 
noting. 

They  bury  themselves  deeper  by  forming  a  peculiar 
outgrowth  called  a  starch  root,  which  is  a  semi-transparent, 
fleshy  affair,  something  like  the  storage  root  of  an 
Alstroemeria,  and  at  first  serves  the  same  purpose  of  con- 
taining a  store  of  nutriment,  but  there  the  similarity  ends, 
for  Alstroemerias  retain  these  storage  roots  throughout 
their  resting  period,  whereas  a  Crocus  at  the  ripening-off 
season  loses  its  starch  root,  its  store  of  starch  being 
absorbed  into  the  newly-formed  corm.  The  starch  root 
withers  and  contracts  in  a  series  of  corrugations  after  the 
manner  of  closing  of  a  concertina,  and  as  its  long  lower  end 
is  firmly  fixed  in  the  soil  the  corm  is  pulled  down  lower 
into  the  space  formerly  occupied  by  the  once  plump 
starch  root,  which  has  now  grown  as  lean  as  the  soup-hating 
Augustus  of  the  Struwwelpeter.  It  frequently  happens 
that  one  of  these  roots  grows  out  from  one  side  of  the 
corm,  and  will  then  cause  an  oblique  descent,  and  in  two 
seasons  carry  a  corm  more  than  an  inch  out  of  the  line 
in  which  it  was  planted. 

So  that  what  with  worms  and  starch  roots  it  is 
necessary  either  to  leave  a  wide  space  between  each  row 
of  seedlings  or  to  place  buried  slates  between  them  to 
prevent  the  different  stocks  becoming  hopelessly  mixed. 
Slates  are  costly  and  space  is  precious,  for  I  hate  a  vacuum 
63 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

in  a  bed  of  good  soil  as  much  as  Nature  does  universally. 
So  we  sow  each  variety  of  seed  in  a  separate  pot,  and 
sink  the  pots,  and  their  gradually  narrowing  sides  not  only 
prevent  the  wandering  of  the  babes  but  force  them  to 
draw  nearer,  and  after  two  years  in  pots,  if  all  is  well 
with  them,  it  should  be  possible  to  turn  them  out  in 
August  and  find  a  layer  of  corms,  each  about  the  size  of  a 
pea,  a  tender  young  green  pea  of  the  first  picking,  and  all 
at  the  bottom  of  the  pot.  Raising  Crocus  seedlings  has 
proved  such  a  source  of  interest  and  pleasure  to  me,  and 
such  a  means  of  enrichment  to  my  collection,  that  I  wish 
I  could  persuade  more  garden  lovers  to  carry  it  on.  It 
has  certainly  the  great  disadvantage  of  a  wait  of  at  least 
three  years  for  the  first  flowering,  but  years  pass  only  too 
swiftly  in  a  garden,  and  once  that  period  is  over  every 
succeeding  season  brings  fresh  babes  to  flowering  strength, 
and  I  know  no  garden  joy  equal  to  a  visit  on  a  sunny 
morning  to  the  Crocus  beds  when  seedlings  are  in  full 
flowering.  To  see  a  dozen,  a  score,  or  better  still  a 
century,  of  some  old  favourite  reproduced  in  a  new 
generation  is  good,  but  still  better  is  the  thrill  of  spotting 
a  pure  white  bloom  in  a  row  of  orthodox  lilac  ones. 
Forms  with  larger  flowers,  deeper  or  lighter  colour,  or 
extra  markings  as  compared  with  the  normal  type,  fill  the 
heart  with  joy  and  pride  when  found  in  one's  own  seed- 
beds, and  it  is  a  happy  being  who  carefully  lifts  them  out 
from  among  the  common  herd  with  the  only  instrument 
really  suited  to  the  purpose,  a  cook's  fork.  Poor  mere 
man  that  I  was,  I  stumbled  along  for  years  in  unenlightened 
masculine  ignorance,  using  a  mason's  trowel,  old  dinner- 
64 


Narcissi  :  Christalla  (white}  and  Homespun 


Spring  Crocuses 

knives,  and  such  bungling,  root-cutting  tools  for  the  fine 
work  of  seedling  selecting,  until  a  practical  cousin  of  the 
fairer  sex  caught  me  using  one  of  the  best  silver  forks  that 
I  had  taken  out  in  a  bowl  of  breakfast  scraps,  the  daily 
portion  of  my  gulls,  and  she  said,  "  What  you  want  is  a 
cook's  fork,  and  I  will  send  you  one."  How  was  I  to  know 
cooks  had  forks  designed  by  Heaven  for  the  use  of  gar- 
deners ?  But  when  it  came  I  wanted  others,  and  as  I  often 
leave  them  stuck  about  in  jungles  of  the  rock  garden  I  am 
a  frequent  customer  at  the  ironmongery  counter  of  the 
Army  and  Navy  Stores,  where  cook's  forks  are  obtainable. 
Go  thou  and  buy  two,  one  of  the  largest  size  for  general 
use  and  one  a  size  smaller  for  weeding  out  grass,  Poa 
annua  especially,  among  delicate  bulbous  things,  and  you 
will  bless  me  every  time  you  use  them,  or  ought  to  do  if 
your  heart  is  not  of  stone.  The  Crocus  treasure-troves  go 
from  the  seed-beds  into  the  Crocus  frame,  and  generally 
suffer  no  check  from  their  removal,  but  ripen  up  a  good 
bulb  for  next  August's  lifting.  I  wish  I  could  breathe  some 
germs  of  the  Crocus  Seedling  Fever  into  the  words  I  write 
and  set  all  who  read  aflame  to  embark  on  such  interesting 
work.  Do  start  this  very  spring.  When  you  see  your 
Crocuses  wide  open  in  flower  sally  forth  with  a  stick 
of  sealing-wax  or  the  amber  mouthpiece  of  an  old  pipe 
in  your  hand,  not  as  a  charm,  talisman,  phylactery,  or 
whatever  you  call  that  sort  of  thing,  but  for  practical  use. 
Rub  whichever  of  the  two  unusual  accompaniments  of  a 
garden  stroll  you  have  chosen,  on  your  coat-sleeve  if  it 
be  woollen,  and  hold  the  rubbed  portion  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible after  ceasing  rubbing  near  the  anthers  of  an  open 
65  E 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Crocus,  and  you  will  find  the  electricity  thereby  generated 
will  cause  the  pollen  grains  to  fly  up  on  to  the  electrified 
object,  and,  what  is  more,  to  stick  there,  but  so  lightly  that 
directly  they  are  rubbed  against  the  stigma  of  another 
Crocus  they  will  leave  the  amber  and  be  left  where  you, 
and  Nature  before  you,  intended  them  to  be.  For  fer- 
tilising flowers  with  small  pollen  grains  you  will  find  this 
plan  much  more  satisfactory  than  the  use  of  a  camel's-hair 
brush.  The  sealing-wax  can  be  wiped  clean  very  easily 
between  each  crossing,  but  pollen  grains  work  in  between 
the  hairs  of  a  brush,  and  are  not  easily  induced  to  leave 
it  and  adhere  to  a  stigma,  so  that  it  is  hard  to  be  sure  you 
have  not  left  some  to  work  out  afterwards  and  muddle  up 
your  crosses.  It  is  best  to  label  the  bulb  with  the  name 
of  the  pollen  parent,  and  either  to  remove  other  flowers 
from  it  or  fertilise  them  with  similar  pollen  as  they  appear. 
The  ovary  of  a  Crocus  flower  is  below  ground,  of  course,  at 
flowering  time,  and  does  not  appear  in  the  upper  world 
until  the  seeds  are  nearly  ripe.  From  early  May  onwards 
and  throughout  June  the  ripening  capsules  may  be  looked 
for,  and  it  is  best  to  pick  them  before  they  split  and  scatter 
their  contents.  A  gentle  pinch  will  soon  tell  you  whether 
the  seeds  inside  are  hard  enough  for  gathering.  I  find  the 
nested  willow-chip  boxes  used  so  much  by  entomologists 
very  useful  for  keeping  the  seed  in  :  the  capsules  ripen  well 
in  such  dry  quarters,  and  the  names  of  the  sorts  can  be 
written  in  pencil  on  the  lid.  Next  best  and  less  bulky  are 
those  strange  wee  packets  sold  for  about  nothing  three 
farthings  the  hundred  as  pence  envelopes.  I  have  often 
wondered  who  uses  them  for  their  original  purpose,  buying 
66 


Spring  Crocuses 

them  by  the  hundred  for  it,  but  cannot  imagine  a  grade  of 
society  so  refined  as  to  clothe  their  pennies  in  these  paper 
jackets. 

For  seed  collecting  they  are  Ai  though,  and  I  generally 
wear  half  a  dozen  in  the  ticket  pocket  of  my  coats,  even 
my  Sunday  best,  and  have  often  acquired  a  new  plant  by 
having  one  at  hand  when  a  pod  or  two  of  poor  little  orphan 
seeds  were  crying  out  for  adoption.  Next  time  I  go  to  the 
A.  and  N.  Stores  for  some  cook's  forks  and  pence  envelopes 
shall  I  find  a  queue  at  either  counter  ?  The  seeds  are  best 
sown  as  the  year's  harvest  is  gathered  in,  but  they  will  be 
none  the  worse  (unless  lost  or  devoured  of  mice)  for  being 
kept  unsown  until  the  middle  of  September.  Then  you 
will  remember  the  pots  are  plunged  out  in  the  open  in  a 
bed  of  ashes  for  two  years,  until  the  cormlets  are  gathered 
together  as  peas  in  a  pod  at  the  bottom  of  the  pots. 

Then  they  get  turned  out  in  August,  cleaned  a  little 
of  worn-out  coats,  and  are  pricked  out  in  rows  in  a  specially 
prepared  bed  of  rather  gritty  soil  in  an  open,  sunny  place, 
and  are  left  there  to  flower.  Here  we  always  have  two 
seasons'  pots  sunk  in  the  ashes,  and  three  seed-beds,  each 
with  one  year's  seedlings  in  it,  so  that  in  their  third  year 
the  seedlings  go  out  into  a  bed  and  should  begin  flowering, 
but  it  is  in  their  fourth  year  that  the  main  crop  of  flowers 
should  appear,  and  in  the  fifth  the  lag-behinds  should  show 
if  they  are  good  for  anything.  After  that  we  turn  that  bed 
out,  sort  out  what  is  left,  and  prepare  it  for  another  batch 
of  two-year-olds. 

Yes,  we  treat  Crocuses  seriously  here,  even  alluding  to 
them  sometimes  as  Croci,  but  I  could  never  bring  myself  to 
67 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

use  the  correct  Greek  pronunciation  and  call  the  first  syllable 
Crock.  I  should  like  to  do  so  if  I  could  remember,  and 
thought  anyone  would  know  what  I  was  talking  about,  for 
I  like  to  be  consistent,  and  one  always  uses  the  short  o  for 
Crocodile,  and  it  would  be  pleasant  to  try  to  believe  in  the 
derivation  of  KpoKo-Sei\os  (Crocus-fearer)  given  by  some  of 
the  ancients. 

It  is  not  very  likely  that  the  huge  reptile  of  the  Nile, 
than  which,  according  to  Pliny,  "  there  is  not  another  crea- 
ture againe  in  the  world,  that  of  a  smaller  beginning  groweth 
to  a  bigger  quantity,"  ever  came  in  contact  with  the  Crocus, 
or  would  take  the  slightest  notice  of  it  if  he  did,  unless  he 
turned  up  his  nose  at  it,  as  his  movable  upper  jaw  would 
permit.  But  one  must  remember  that  the  word  Croco- 
deilos  was  also  used  for  smaller  Saurians,  even  for  his  poor 
relations  the  lizards,  and  on  the  authority  of  Stephanus  we 
learn  that  Saffron  mixed  with  honey  was  good  to  anoint 
beehives  and  scare  off  the  land  Crocodiles. 

It  is  interesting,  too,  to  note  that  the  Latin  name  Crocus 
has  entirely  supplanted  the  English  one  of  Saffron  in 
popular  use  for  the  plant,  providing  a  handy  argument 
against  the  inventing  of  lengthy  and  often  confusing  new 
English  names  for  plants,  such  as  Cape  Fuchsias  for  Correa 
and  Cape  Cowslip  for  Lachenalia. 

Saffron  is  now  used  almost  entirely  for  the  drug,  and 
Meadow-saffron  as  a  name  for  the  Colchicum  is  not 
commonly  used  for  the  garden  forms,  and  I  hope  never 
will  be,  for  the  Crocus  and  Colchicum  are  too  frequently 
confused  as  it  is.  "What  is  the  Crocus  found  in  the 
meadows  in  the  Alps,  or  Germany,  in  the  autumn  ?  "  is  a 
68 


Spring  Crocuses 

question  I  am  asked  so  frequently  I  have  sometimes 
thought  of  having  a  short  reply  form  printed  to  hand  or 
post  to  the  inquirers.  It  should  state  that  a  Colchicum 
belongs  to  the  Lily  family,  and  shows  it  by  having  six 
stamens,  while  Crocus,  as  an  Irid,  has  only  three. 

This  very  elementary  fragment  of  botanical  lore  once 
stood  me  in  good  stead.  Very  many  years  ago,  more 
than  I  care  to  count  up  exactly,  when  I  was  a  fledgeling 
gardener  and  beginning  to  learn  and  collect  plants,  I  was 
taken  to  Coombe-Fishacre,  a  veritable  Golconda  of  floral 
treasures,  and  Mr.  Archer  Hinde,  their  kind  custodian,  was, 
I  knew,  a  great  authority  on  plants.  Imagine,  then,  my 
nervousness  when  on  going  out  to  the  garden  I  was  asked 
the  name  of  a  group  of  rosy-lilac  flowers.  "  A  Colchicum," 
I  cautiously  replied,  "  but  I  am  not  sure  which,"  and  then 
came  the  reassuring  remark,  "Oh,  that  will  do.  It's 
speciosum,  and  I  knew,  but  I  always  ask  people,  and  if  they 
call  it  a  Crocus  I  won't  give  them  a  thing." 

I  still  grow  and  value  many  of  the  plants  I  carried 
away  with  me  that  afternoon,  and  bless  my  luck  in  having 
known  just  enough  to  avoid  calling  a  Colchicum  a  Crocus. 

I  feel  Meadow-saffron  to  be  almost  as  bad  a  misnomer, 
for  Saffron  is  only  the  Arabic  Zahferan,  and  in  but  slightly 
altered  forms  the  word  is  found  in  both  Oriental  and 
European  languages  to  denote  Crocus  sativus  itself  or  the 
drug  procured  from  it. 

Crocus  must  be  one  of  the  oldest  names  given  to  a 

flower  and  still  in  common  use.      If   there  is  an  older  I 

cannot  recall  it.      It  is  the  Latin  form,  from  the  Greek,  of 

a  very  ancient  word-root  which  appears  in  Sanskrit    as 

69 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Kunkuma,  in  Indian  languages  as  Kurkum,  and  in  Hebrew 
as  Karkom.  In  these  Eastern  languages  the  consonants 
are  more  important  than  the  vowels,  and  are  written  first, 
the  vowels  being  mere  dots  and  dashes  placed  above  or 
below  the  line.  So  K.R.K.M.  would  represent  this  word, 
the  name  of  the  drug  so  highly  prized  in  the  ancient  world 
as  a  sweet  scent,  a  golden  dye,  and  a  medicine.  It  is  easy 
to  imagine  how  merchants  would  carry  it  about  the  world 
for  sale,  and  how  nations  speaking  different  languages 
would  alter  the  name  a  little  ;  Crocum  is  a  form  found 
in  the  writings  of  some  Romans,  and  doubtless  the  result 
of  their  not  quite  catching  the  pronunciation  of  the  name 
by  which  the  Phoenician  merchants  called  the  precious 
drug.  We  have  plentiful  instances  in  our  own  land  of 
the  way  a  vowel  gets  tranferred  from  before  to  after  an  r 
as  one  tracks  the  word  northward. 

I  shall  not  speak  here  of  autumnal  Crocuses,  though 
I  know  it  is  not  quite  consistent  with  my  plan  and  the 
way  I  treated  Iris  unguicularis  and  the  Snowdrops,  but  I 
like  a  change,  and  hope  you  do.  The  Spring  and  Autumn 
bloomers  are  not  varieties  of  the  same  species,  unless 
graveolens  be,  as  botanists  declare,  a  form  of  vitdlinus. 
Nor,  except  in  the  case  of  three  widely  differing  species, 
do  any  flower  continuously  from  Autumn  to  Spring.  Of 
these  last,  two  (C.  caspius  and  laevigatus)  flower  mainly  in 
the  autumn,  with  just  a  few  poor  remnants  of  flowers  for 
the  New  Year,  so  are  best  classed  as  autumnal.  The 
third  species,  C.  Cambessedesii,  is  the  only  one  with 
sufficient  originality  of  mind  to  baffle  all  attempts  at 
classification  by  time  of  flowering. 
70 


Spring  Crocuses 


It  is  a  lovely  but  tiny  species,  endemic  to  the  Balearic 
Isles,  and  was  quite  lost  to  cultivation  until  a  few  years 
ago,  when  a  cousin  of  mine,  who  lives  in  Spain,  kindly 
managed  to  get  some  collected  for  me  ;  but  not  before 
every  species  of  Merendera,  Romulea,  and  Colchicum 
found  on  Majorca  and  Minorca  had  arrived  here,  trium- 
phantly announced  as  the  precious  Crocus.  This  is  ever 
the  case  when  the  amateur  collects  some  wild  Crocus  for 
me,  and  in  many  places  Sternbergias  are  also  to  be  met 
with,  and  come  along  regardless  of  their  weight  for 
postage  ;  and  then,  when  all  these  members  of  other  genera 
are  exhausted,  if  my  friends'  patience  holds  out  there  will 
arrive  a  specimen  of  the  real  thing,  with  the  query,  "  Can 
this  common  weed  be  the  one  you  want  ?  It  is  so 
common  here,  we  thought  it  cannot  be  any  good."  So 
C.  Cambessedesii  came  at  last.  It  is  one  of  the  smallest 
of  all,  and  looks  as  though  it  might  have  been  the  fairies' 
first  model  when  they  were  designing  C.  Imperati,  being 
very  much  like  it,  only  so  much  smaller,  and  only  just 
washed  with  colour.  Its  segments  are  about  half  an  inch 
long,  palest  lilac  within,  and  the  three  outer  ones  are  pale 
straw  colour  externally,  and  beautifully  marked  with  purple 
featherings.  The  flowers  appear  at  intervals  from  October 
till  March,  among  leaves  almost  as  slender  as  a  hair.  I 
always  like  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  Crocus  frames,  on  my 
way  back  from  church  on  New  Year's  Day,  to  see  what 
promise  of  Spring  they  have  as  a  present  for  me.  For 
many  years  I  have  been  greeted  by  newly-arrived  blooms 
of  the  typical  brilliant  yellow  form  of  C.  chrysanthus,  and 
in  most  seasons  it  will  have  appeared,  in  the  open  border 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

too ;  and  as  among  the  autumn  Crocuses  only  the  first, 
C.  Scharojanii,  and  the  last,  C.  vitellinus,  are  yellow,  and 
both  of  these  are  very  rare,  the  golden  buds  of  C. 
chrysanthus  are  a  veritable  foretaste  of  Spring.  It  is  quite 
otherwise  with  Spring-flowering  Croci,  a  large  proportion 
of  which  have  either  yellow  flowers  or  at  least  the  three 
outer  segments  of  some  shade  of  buff  or  straw  colour  on 
the  outside.  Of  those  now  in  cultivation,  for  the  one  truly 
autumnal  yellow,  Scharojanii,  we  have  eleven  Spring  ones, 
with  flowers  entirely  yellow  on  the  inner  surface,  four 
that  have  yellow  forms  as  well  as  white  or  lilac  ones,  and 
several  with  buff  outer  segments,  at  any  rate  in  some  of 
their  forms.  They  may  be  divided  as  follows : 
Normally  yellow : 

Aureus,  susianus,  stellaris,  ancyrensis,  gargaricus,  Korol- 
kowii,  Olivieri,  Suterianus,  graveolens,  Balansae,  chry- 
santhus. 
With  yellow  forms : 

Candidus,  reticulatus,  biflorus,  a?rius. 
With  buff  exterior : 

Imperati,  suaveolens,  dalmaticus,  etruscus,  versicolor,  and 

vernus. 

The  two  last  are  seldom  seen  with  any  yellow  about 
them,  but  I  have  some  versicolor  collected  near  Mentone 
that  in  some  forms  have  straw-coloured  outer  segments, 
and  a  seedling  I  got  here  from  vernus  Mme.  Mina  has  quite 
a  Nankeen  tint  outside  when  in  bud.  I  have  never  seen 
a  yellow  Crocus  growing  wild,  and  without  close  acquaint- 
ance with  them  in  their  homes  it  is  impossible  to  say  what 
causes  this  preponderance  of  yellow  in  vernal  species. 
72 


Spring  Crocuses 


It  may  be  more  conspicuous  to  insect  visitors  among 
withered  grass  and  stones  or  bare  earth,  while  the  lilac  and 
white  of  autumnal  species  form  a  greater  contrast  with  the 
browns  and  tawny  reds  of  fallen  or  dead  leaves. 

I  have  before  alluded  to  the  way  external  stripes,  after 
the  manner  of  those  of  the  zebra  and  tiger,  render  the 
buds  and  closed  flowers  inconspicuous,  and  it  is  worth 
noting  that  these  stripes  are  particularly  well  developed  on 
Spring  Crocuses,  and  in  the  yellow  species ;  in  fact  only 
three,  gargaricus,  Olivieri,  and  Suterianus,  have  so  far 
never  been  found  with  stripes  or  feathered  markings,  for 
ancyrensts,  which  has  been  described  as  never  varying  in 
this  way,  has  of  late  years  given  me  seedlings  with 
featherings  and  suffusions  of  dark  brown.  The  most 
extreme  of  all  in  this  respect  is  C.  Balansae,  one  form  of 
which  has  the  three  outer  segments  externally  of  a  deep 
mahogany  colour,  and  in  bud  looks  nearly  black  and  is 
very  hard  to  see,  but  the  moment  these  deep-coloured 
segments  part,  the  rich  orange  of  the  inner  segments 
makes  a  most  conspicuous  and  beautiful  object  of  the 
flower.  A  half-expanded  one  forms  as  striking  a  colour- 
contrast  as  any  flower  I  can  think  of.  Every  one  who  sees 
it  for  the  first  time  is  astonished  at  its  beauty,  and  can 
hardly  believe  it  is  real,  like  the  little  girl  at  the  Zoo,  who 
after  gazing  at  the  Anteaters  said,  "  But  there  aren't  really 
such  animals  as  those,  are  there,  Nurse  ?  "  Other  forms 
of  C.  Balansae  are  pretty,  especially  those  well  feathered 
with  bronze  on  the  orange  ground,  but  they  are  quite 
credibly  tame  and  dull  after  the  mahogany  one.  It  has 
never  borne  a  varietal  name,  so  it  is  not  possible  to  buy 
73 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

it  for  certain  from  any  nursery  I  know  of,  and  it  does  not 
come  quite  true  from  seed. 

Of  yellow  Crocuses  the  best  known  is  the  old  Dutch 
form  of  aureus,  too  well  known  to  need  description,  but  it 
deserves  mention  as  it  is  a  very  curious  plant,  for  though 
its  anthers  are  larger  than  those  of  any  other  Crocus  it 
has  a  deformed,  atrophied  stigma,  and  is  quite  sterile, 
never  producing  seeds,  and  has  been  like  that  for  a  very 
long  time,  and  so  must  have  been  propagated  solely  by 
offsets,  by  vegetative  instead  of  sexual  reproduction,  and 
yet  it  shows  no  sign  of  deterioration,  and  is,  I  should  say, 
one  of  the  most  widely  cultivated  of  all  plants  that  cannot 
be  raised  from  seeds,  for  there  can  be  but  few  gardens 
that  do  not  contain  a  few  hundreds  of  the  common  yellow 
Crocus.  The  Saffron  Crocus  (C.  sativus)  is  another  similar 
case.  It  has  been  cultivated  for  centuries  for  the  sake  of 
its  stigmata,  which  being  dried  become  the  Saffron  of 
commerce,  from  Kashmir  to  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  and  was 
at  one  time  largely  grown  in  England  at  Saffron  Walden. 
But  it  has  never  produced  seeds  in  the  memory  of  man 
or  since  he  has  written  about  it.  I  have  a  curious,  dull- 
coloured,  and  smaller  flowered  form  of  aureus  that  in 
other  respects  is  much  like  the  Dutch  Crocus,  but  does 
produce  a  few  seeds  in  favourable  seasons.  I  cannot 
trace  its  origin,  but  have  heard  rumours  of  a  stock  of 
yellow  Crocus  that  exists  in  Holland  and  is  of  an  inferior 
quality,  and  I  suspect  it  is  my  fertile  but  dingy  old  friend. 
The  wild  type  of  C.  aureus  is  a  very  free  seeder,  and  varies 
a  good  deal  in  its  seedlings.  The  best  forms  of  it  are  of 
an  intense  glowing  orange :  one  I  get  from  Mr.  Smith's 
74 


Spring  Crocuses 

wonderful  nursery  at  Newry  under  the  name  of  moesiacus 
(which  is  rightly  but  a  synonym  of  aureus)  is  larger  and 
deeper  in  colour  than  any  other  orange-coloured  Crocus 
that  can  be  grown  outside.  I  think  these  deep  orange 
aureus  forms  grow  best  in  slight  shade  such  as  is  given 
by  some  small  light  bush,  and  when  they  are  allowed  to 
seed  about  and  colonise  are  simply  glorious  in  the  rock 
garden. 

Sometimes  I  get  a  seedling  which  is  the  form  Dean 
Herbert  named  lutescens  and  figured  in  the  Botanical 
Magazine,  a  beautiful  flower  of  several  shades,  as  though 
cream  were  mixed  with  apricots,  and  there  was  more 
cream  than  apricot  at  the  edges  of  the  segments.  This 
season  I  have  a  white  seedling  which  is  of  course  the  old 
named  form,  v.  lacteus,  but  I  hope  from  this  year's 
behaviour  it  will  prove  an  earlier  flowerer  like  the  type,  a 
few  flowers  of  which  generally  flare  up  before  the  paler 
Dutch  appears,  whereas  the  old  lacteus  is  the  latest  of  all 
the  forms  of  aureus  to  pierce  through,  and  often  manages 
to  keep  back  a  flower  or  two  to  be  company  for  vernus 
var.  obesus  and  compete  for  the  honour  of  being  the  last 
Crocus  of  that  Spring.  Lacteus  is  an  ivory  white  in 
colour,  distinct  from  any  other,  and  you  can  see  it  is  a 
yellow  turned  white,  reminding  one  of  that  beautiful 
softened  shade  of  white  that  in  old  age  replaces  red  hair  of 
the  shade  euphemistically  called  auburn,  but  colloquially 
carrots  or  ginger. 

No  present-day  seedlings  of  the  orange  wild  aureus 
are  anything  like  the  old  Dutch  variety,  whose  origin  is 
lost  in  mystery,  as  also  is  that  of  another  section  of  this 
75 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

species,  which  is  most  likely  of  garden  origin.  It  is  of 
slender  build  and  pale  colouring,  and  is  known  as  sulphureus, 
and  there  are  three  varieties  of  it :  a  self-coloured  one  known 
as  sulphureus  concolor,  almost  as  pale  as  butter  ;  a  rather 
faded-looking  one,  shading  nearly  to  white  at  the  tips  of 
the  segments,  which  is  sulphureus  pallidus ;  and  the  other, 
sulphureus  striatus,  is  slightly  larger  and  deeper  in  colour 
than  concolor,  and  striped  outside  with  reddish  brown. 
All  of  them  are  pretty  and  interesting,  especially  in  the 
rock  garden,  and  they  have  always  been  perfectly  sterile, 
and  the  anthers  are  reduced  to  mere  rudiments.  It  is 
curious  that  C.  aureus  should  have  been  so  sportive  long 
ago  and  produced  such  widely  different  breaks  and  then 
ceased  to  give  more,  and  the  sterility  of  the  new  forms  is 
so  contrary  to  general  experience  with  a  sportive  form, 
which  nearly  always,  if  the  flowers  are  not  double,  shows 
greater  fertility.  Every  garden  ought  to  have  large  clumps 
of  the  old  yellow  Crocus  to  brighten  up  the  bare  soil  in 
February,  and  I  find  a  good  place  for  such  is  towards  the 
back  of  borders,  round  the  feet  of  deciduous  shrubs  or 
permanently  planted  herbaceous  plants  that  cover  a  large 
space  when  in  full  leaf.  They  have  a  fine  effect  in  such 
places,  especially  if  planted  in  a  thick  central  mass  and 
with  outlying  smaller  groups  as  if  naturally  spreading 
from  the  main  clump,  and  to  my  mind  look  better  than 
when  in  bands  or  small  clumps  in  the  front  of  a  border, 
and  they  are  quite  capable  of  taking  care  of  themselves  in 
the  middle  distance,  whereas  the  edge  is  so  valuable  for 
more  delicate  plants.  Wherever  they  can  be  planted  in 
grass  that  can  be  left  unmown  till  their  leaves  ripen  they 
76 


Spring  Crocuses 


show  to  the  very  best  advantage,  and  the  yellow  Crocus 
is  best  planted  alone,  unless  some  early  flowering  white 
vernus  form  be  mixed  with  it,  each  in  fairly  large  clumps, 
and  a  few  outliers  of  both  kinds  hobnobbing  occasionally. 
I  meant  to  treat  of  the  yellow  Crocuses  first,  but  find 
it  a  bore  to  be  too  systematic,  and  I  want  to  go  on  talking 
of  bold  plantings  in  big  borders  and  grass.  The  fat, 
prosperous,  gone  into  trade  and  done  well  with  it,  garden 
forms  of  Crocus  vernus  are  best  used  for  colour  masses. 
The  individual  blooms  strike  me  as  coarse  after  the  refined 
true  species.  But  used  as  I  like  the  Dutch  Yellow,  they 
look  well.  Margot,  a  soft  lavender  one,  is  best  of  all,  and 
looks  more  like  some  species — a  giant  Tomasmt'anus,  per- 
haps— than  a  florist's  vernus,  and  I  should  like  to  have  it  in 
thousands,  and  generally  plant  a  new  patch  of  about  a 
hundred  each  season.  Purpureus  grandiflorus  is  a  fine 
effective  thing,  especially  if  near  a  clump,  and  the  scouts  of 
either  army  intermingling,  of  some  lilac  or  striped  variety 
such  as  Mme.  Mina  or  Sir  Walter  Scott.  I  do  not  care  so 
much  for  large  clumps  of  any  white  form.  At  the  back 
of  the  borders  they  look  too  cold,  and  suggest  unmelted 
snowpats.  One  of  the  lawns  here  is  divided  from  meadow 
land  by  a  light  iron  fence,  and  as  usually  happens  the 
mowing  machine  spares  a  strip  a  few  inches  in  width  of 
the  grass  at  the  foot  of  the  fence  on  the  lawn  side.  I 
noticed  in  a  Norfolk  garden  a  charming  effect,  where  such 
a  sanctuary  was  peopled  with  a  long  line  of  Harebells  and 
Lady's  Bed-straw,  and  the  following  autumn  we  turned 
back  our  turf  at  the  foot  of  the  fence  and  planted  Crocuses 
as  thickly  as  we  could  set  them,  and  replaced  the  turf 
77 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

counterpane,  tucking  them  snugly  in  bed.  In  the  first 
stretch  I  planted  we  mixed  up  three  forms,  purpureus 
grandijlorusj  Mme.  Mina,  and  Mont-blanc,  stirring  them  well 
together,  but  in  a  later  planting  we  did  a  stretch  with  one 
colour,  and  then  began  mixing  in  another  form,  about  one 
of  the  new  to  four  of  the  old,  and  gradually  increased  the 
percentage  of  the  new  until  we  had  used  up  our  stock  of  the 
old,  and  the  line  became  all  of  one  sort  again.  This  has 
a  very  good  effect,  and  if  colours  that  blend  prettily  are 
chosen  is  the  better  plan  to  follow. 

Now  back  to  the  Yellows.  Among  them  are  some  very 
dainty  gems,  suitable  for  the  rock  garden.  C.  ancyrensis  has 
several  good  points;  it  is  inexpensive,  early,  seeds  freely,  and 
sows  itself,  and  it  has  such  a  rough  netted  jacket  that  it  is 
avoided  by  mice  (has  been  so  far,  I  must  write,  or  perhaps 
to-morrow  I  shall  find  holes,  empty  corm  tunics  and  room 
for  repentance).  That  does  seem  to  be  a  fact,  though  : 
they  will  dig  out  certain  species  with  soft  jackets,  especially 
Salzmannii  and  Tournefortei,  and  finish  off  a  whole  clump  if 
not  trapped  first,  but  they  leave  Sieberi,  susianus,  and  such 
reticulated  armoured  kinds  alone.  I  suppose  it  would  be 
rather  like  having  the  tennis-net  entangled  in  our  front 
teeth  to  chew  such  tunics.  C.  Korolkowii,  especially  Van 
Tubergen's  large  forms  from  Bokhara,  are  good  for  a  warm 
nook,  and  often  commence  flowering  in  the  old  year.  They 
are  mostly  of  a  glistening  clear  yellow,  like  that  of  a  Lesser 
Celandine,  and  have  deep  bronze  and  purple  frecklings  on 
the  outside.  They  make  the  largest  corms  of  any  Crocus 
I  know,  and  when  first  sent  from  Bokhara  were  planted 
for  a  Gladiolus  species.  The  older  form  of  Korolkowii  from 
78 


Spring  Crocuses 

further  East  is  a  washy  little  imitation  of  these  better 
forms,  greenish  on  the  back,  rather  the  colour  you  some- 
times find  on  the  outside  of  the  yolk  of  a  hard-boiled  egg, 
and  suggestive  of  dirty  metal — German  silver,  or  Britannia 
metal,  "  which  goes  green  and  smells  nasty,"  as  Mrs. 
Brown  knew  by  experience.  C.  Olivieri  is  for  all  intents 
and  purposes  an  orange-coloured  Balansae  without  external 
markings  but  gargaricus  has  character  of  its  own,  its  first 
flowers  coming  without  leaves,  and  they  are  of  a  soft 
warm  orange,  like  the  reflected  depth  in  the  heart  of  a 
Van  Zion  Double  Daffodil.  It  has  an  original  sort  of  corm 
too,  very  small  and  round,  and  it  splits  up  in  some  seasons 
into  a  multitude  of  little  yellow  pills,  very  hard  to  collect 
out  of  the  soil  at  lifting  time,  and  you  know  will  require 
two  seasons  to  grow  to  flowering  size  again.  But  a  patch 
in  flower  on  the  rock  garden  makes  up  for  it  all.  One 
little  yellow  Crocus  has  an  obnoxious  trait  in  its  character, 
and  is  a  little  stinking  beast,  as  Dr.  Johnson  defined  the 
stoat.  It  is  well  named  graveolens,  and  its  heavy  scent  is 
generally  the  first  intimation  I  get  of  its  having  opened  its 
flowers.  Sometimes  I  get  a  whiff  of  it  even  before  I  reach 
the  Crocus  frame — an  abominable  mixture  of  the  odour 
of  blackbeetles  and  imitation  sable  or  skunk,  or  one  of 
those  awful  furs  with  which  people  in  the  next  pew  or  in 
front  of  you  at  a  matinee  poison  you.  A  dried  specimen 
of  this  Crocus  retains  its  scent  for  years,  and  so  does  the 
blotting  paper  it  has  been  pressed  in.  I  think  it  emanates 
from  the  pollen  grains,  and  I  suppose  it  must  be  of  some 
use  to  it  in  its  native  country — perhaps  attractive  to  some 
insect  of  perverted  olfactory  tastes.  It  is  a  vegetable 
79 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

equivalent  of  the  egg  of  the  Fulmar  Petrel,  which  retains 
much  the  same  awful  scent  for  years  after  it  has  been 
blown. 

Though  I  began  with  a  reference  to  it  I  have  saved  my 
account  of  Crocus  chrysanthus  for  the  last  of  the  Yellows 
because  it  is  my  favourite,  and  also  it  varies  into  so  many 
other  colours  it  will  lead  us  away  from  the  livery  of 
jealousy.  In  most  of  its  forms  it  is  one  of  the  smaller- 
flowered  species,  but  it  produces  buds  so  lavishly  that  a 
few  corms  give  a  solid  colour-effect  when  in  full  bloom, 
though  of  course  this  means  they  should  be  placed  at  the 
edge  of  the  border  among  choice  and  neat  plants,  or  in 
the  rock  garden.  One  race  of  chrysanthus,  of  which 
more  must  be  said  later,  shows  promise  of  great  increase 
in  size,  and  there  may  be  a  great  future  for  my  favourite  if 
size  can  be  added  to  its  other  charms  of  varied  colouring 
and  beauty  of  shape.  It  is  what  the  older  Crocus-lovers 
called  gourd-shaped,  and  would  have  borne  the  latinised 
equivalent  laganae-florus,  better  than  the  form  of  aureus 
to  which  it  was  once  applied.  I  greatly  admire  a  gourd- 
shaped  Crocus  ;  it  means  that  the  throat  is  wide  and  full, 
and  the  segments  ample  and  rounded,  at  least  at  their 
bases,  so  that  an  unopened  blossom  has  a  distinct  waist 
about  two-thirds  of  the  way  down,  and  below  that  there 
is  a  second  swelling  oval  formed  by  the  throat  ;  when 
fully  expanded  the  segments  bend  outwards  from  above 
this  waist,  forming  a  round  rather  than  starry  flower,  as 
the  segments  in  well-developed  gourd-mimics  overlap 
well.  In  bud,  then,  we  have  the  outline  of  a  Pilgrim's- 
bottle  Gourd,  standing  on  its  head  but  not  flattened 
80 


Narcissi :  Elegance  (top  flower)  and  Gloria  Mundi 


Spring  Crocuses 

enough  to  stand  the  other  way  as  a  real  one  should,  and 
in  an  open  flower  we  get  a  solid  effect  that  would  charm 
the  eye  of  such  a  florist  as  the  great  Glenny. 

I  wish  I  could  show  you  the  Crocus  frame  and  the 
seed-beds  on  a  sunny  morning  in  early  February,  that  you 
might  see  these  gems  in  the  flesh  instead  of  through  this 
printed  page.  Let  us  be  childish  enough  to  "make 
believe "  we  are  doing  it.  I  will  take  my  garden  basket 
and  all  its  contents,  almost  as  varied  a  collection  as  Alice's 
White  Knight  had,  but  certainly  more  useful,  even  the 
mouse-trap  on  too  frequent  occasions,  while  the  cook's 
forks  to  extract  new  treasures,  and  painted  wooden  labels 
to  mark  them  withal,  are  indispensable.  It  is  noon,  for  I 
have  waited  for  you,  my  visitors,  and  your  train  was  late, 
delayed  by  a  fog  in  town  which  here  was  only  a  rime 
frost  and  white  mist  that  the  sun  has  conquered,  and  the 
lawns  are  only  dewy  now  in  the  shadows,  so  we  can  take 
the  short  cut  over  them,  passing  the  Snowdrop  clumps  and 
Aconite  carpets  and  hurrying  on  to  make  the  most  of  the 
sunshine,  over  the  New  River  by  the  bridge  guarded  by 
the  weird  lead  ostriches,  which  are  six  feet  high  and  give 
some  visitors  a  turn  when  they  first  see  them.  Into  the 
kitchen  garden,  and  don't  look  at  the  peach-house  Crocus 
clumps  yet,  but  hurry  along  past  the  vineries  round  by 
the  stove  and  then — are  they  open  ?  Yes,  even  in  the 
seed-beds  in  the  open  air  bees  are  busy  on  the  lines  of 
colour.  There  are  several  lines  of  uniform  lilac — without 
a  break  of  a  pure  white  or  deep  purple  original-minded 
babe  ;  the  labels  at  their  heads  tell  us  they  are  Sieberi  or 
Tomasimanus,  while  solid  yellow  families  are  proclaimed 
81  F 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

as  ancyrensis,  Korolkowii,  or  aureus,  but  the  variegated  lines 
are  our  objects  of  veneration,  where  white,  cream,  sulphur- 
yellow,  and  lilac  look  as  if  all  the  seeds  of  the  season  had 
been  mixed.  The  label  on  one  such  will  perhaps  say 
chrysanthus  good  white,  another  c.  pal/idus,  or  even  striped 
seedling,  but  except  those  labelled  c.  superbus  there  is  no  uni- 
formity, thank  Heaven.  You  must  not  mind  if  I  suddenly 
yell  with  joy,  for  perhaps  yesterday  was  an  R.H.S.  day,  and 
I  was  in  Vincent  Square  from  early  till  late,  and  Monday 
was  wet  and  no  Crocuses  open,  and  Sunday  had  so  many 
services  and  Sunday-school  classes,  I  have  not  seen  my 
seedlings  since  Saturday.  So,  if  there  is  an  extra  fine 
white  flower  with  orange  throat,  a  deeper  blue  self  than 
ever  before,  or  some  specially  peacocky  chameleon  with  an 
inventive  genius  for  external  markings,  I  shall  shout  and 
flop  on  my  knees  regardless  of  mud  and  my  best  knickers 
donned  for  the  visitors,  and  the  cook's  fork  will  tenderly 
extract  the  prize,  and  you  can  admire  it  without  going  on 
the  knee,  while  I  am  writing  a  label  for  it,  and  before  it 
goes  into  a  place  of  honour  in  the  frame.  It  is  not  every 
day,  though,  that  my  variety-spotting  eye  lights  thus 
easily  on  a  tip-topper,  and  even  now  we  must  look  care- 
fully along  the  flowering  rows  for  promising  breaks, 
bending  some  flowers  to  one  side  if  fully  open  to  see 
what  external  markings  they  carry.  Some  will  be  replicas 
of  good  forms  selected  in  former  years,  but  very  seldom 
sufficiently  exact  a  copy  to  be  mixed  with  that  stock,  so 
they,  and  some  that  are  obviously  from  the  same  studio 
but  by  a  prentice  hand,  can  be  cook's-forked  out  for  you 
to  carry  away  if  you  are  bitten  with  Crocomania.  Now 
82 


Spring  Crocuses 


move  on  to  the  frames.  They  have  four  divisions,  but 
two  only  are  ablaze,  for  the  other  twain  are  devoted 
to  autumnal  varieties,  and  now  contain  leaves  only,  save 
for  a  few  rare  and  tender  bulbous  plants  that  share  their 
home,  Romuleas  that  came  masquerading  as  Croci,  and 
such  people.  In  the  upper  part  of  the  frames  are  squares 
of  twenty-five  to  fifty  of  some  Crocus  that  has  increased 
well,  but  nearer  the  front  we  get  almost  as  many  labels  as 
plants,  for  here  are  the  seedlings  selected  during  the  last 
few  seasons,  and  the  miffy,  peevish,  no-pleasing-'em  kinds 
that  simply  won't  increase  ;  but  among  them  are  some  of 
the  loveliest,  and  you  will  see  at  a  glance  that  there  is  a 
very  large  preponderance  of  varieties  labelled  as  chrysan- 
thus  seedlings,  and  yet  no  two  are  quite  alike.  When 
I  see  them  here  I  long  to  be  transported  by  magic  carpet 
to  the  Bithynian  Olympus,  where  C.  chrysanthus  is  found 
in  its  most  variable  mood.  George  Maw  records  in  his 
magnificent  monograph  of  the  genus  that  it  was  from 
thence  he  brought  the  white  form  he  named  albidus,  the 
white  with  blue  external  markings  which  is  his  variety 
coerulescens,  and  best  of  all  the  sulphur  form  now  known 
as  variety  pallidus,  which  has  proved  the  best  seed  parent 
of  all,  and  given  us  the  race  of  Anakim  of  this  species 
which  I  have  mentioned. 

They  originated  at  Haarlem  in  that  centre  of  creation 
of  new  plant  forms,  the  Zwanenburg  Nursery,  where  Mr. 
Van  Tubergen  and  his  two  nephews,  Mr.  John  and  Mr. 
Thomas  Hoog,  always  have  some  fresh  revelation  of  beauty 
awaiting  the  visitor,  and  frequently  delight  me  by  most 
kindly  posting  me  some  new  development  among  Crocuses. 
83 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

One  season  they  sent  a  large  white  form  with  cream- 
coloured  outer  segments  richly  suffused  with  crimson 
purple,  asking  what  I  thought  had  produced  this  sudden 
break  among  seedlings  of  chrysanthus  pallidus.  Three 
years  previously  I  flowered  a  batch  of  seedling  chrysanthus 
here,  among  which  were  forms  almost  identical  with  the 
Haarlem  wonder,  but  raised  from  forms  of  variety  coeru- 
lescens,  so  I  was  able  to  reply  that  I  believed  them  to  be 
pure  chrysanthus  in  descent,  and  this  has  been  proved  by 
the  seeds  of  this  blue  and  white  form,  which  is  now  dis- 
tributed and  known  as  "  Warley  Variety,"  giving  a  per- 
centage of  typical  pallidus  forms  at  Haarlem. 

These  blue  and  whites  are  lovely  forms  and  very  strong 
growers,  and  I  recommend  a  free  use  of  Warley  Variety 
for  the  rock  garden  and  also  as  a  seed  parent.  For  the 
best  form  of  my  kindred  race  I  have  an  even  greater  affection, 
perhaps  as  my  own  raising  to  begin  with,  but  it  is  a  rounder 
flower  with  more  cream  colour  in  the  outer  segments,  and 
the  crimson  markings  are  divided  into  more  distinct  feather- 
ings. I  call  it  Bowies'  Bullfinch,  having  adopted  the  plan 
of  calling  the  best  of  my  chrysanthus  seedlings  after  birds' 
names.  Yellow  Hammer,  a  light  yellow  striped  with  deep 
brown,  Siskin  with  bright  yellow  exterior  to  the  outer 
segments  but  the  inner  pure  white,  a  very  effective  little 
chap,  and  Snow  Bunting,  white  with  grey  lines  on  cream- 
coloured  outer  segments,  have  gone  forth  into  the  world,  and 
I  wish  them  to  bear  the  genitival  form  of  my  patronymic 
before  their  avian  pet  name,  so  as  to  distinguish  seedlings 
raised  here  from  others  that  I  know  are  coming  along  in 
friends'  and  neighbours'  seed-beds.  The  22nd  of  February 
84 


Spring  Crocuses 

1905,  stands  out  as  an  event  in  the  Crocus  world  for  me, 
for  a  little  packet  post-marked  Haarlem  lay  on  my  break- 
fast table,  and  had  brought  me  five  blooms  from  Mr.  Hoog 
of  C.  chrysanthus  pallidus  seedlings  which  for  size  and  de- 
licious creamy  moonlight  yellows  surpassed  anything  I 
had  dreamt  of.  One  had  a  band  of  deep  purple  on  the  outer 
segment,  another  greenish-blue  feathering,  and  the  largest 
of  all  was  as  soft  a  yellow  as  the  pat  of  butter  in  front  of 
me,  and  with  a  feathering  patch  of  warm  brown-madder 
at  the  base  of  each  segment  that  set  off  the  yellow  in  much 
the  same  manner  as  the  apical  patch  of  brownish  black 
does  on  the  forewing  of  the  lovely  Pale  Clouded  Yellow 
Butterfly.  My  admiration  of  this  new  race  went  to  Holland 
by  return  of  post,  and  had  a  pleasant  sequel  in  a  generous 
gift  of  corms  of  these  varieties  and  the  naming  of  the  butter- 
coloured  giant  after  me.  I  wish  I  possessed  a  tenth  of  the 
vigour  and  good  temper  of  my  namesake  !  "  So  far  "  he 
has  increased  well  and  smiled  back  at  me  in  the  weak 
wintry  sun,  in  Crocus  frame,  rock  garden,  or  ordinary 
border,  and  every  one  singles  it  out  at  a  glance  as  the  best 
of  all  the  Yellows.  Except  in  the  typical,  early-flowering 
yellow  form,  the  stigmata  of  these  chrysanthus  forms  I  have 
described  are  bright  scarlet,  and  give  a  brightness  and  finish 
to  the  open  blossoms,  but  there  is  another  race  of  chrysan- 
thus with  gourd-shaped  throats  but  then  a  falling  off,  for  the 
segments  are  rather  pointed  and  make  too  starry  an  open 
flower.  This  race  is  invariably  freckled  or  feathered  ex- 
ternally with  brown  of  various  shades,  and  they  were  called 
by  Maw  vars.  fusco-tinctus  or  fusco-lineatus  according  to 
the  patterns  of  their  freckles.  They  all  have  plain  yellow 
85 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

stigmata,  and  a  curious  line  of  their  own  in  anthers,  the 
ground  colour  instead  of  yellow  being  smoky -grey  or 
greenish-black,  which,  of  course,  is  most  conspicuous  in  a 
newly-opened  one,  before  the  anther  valves  have  rolled  back 
and  the  pollen  broken  loose.  These  dusky  anthers  seem 
to  be  correlated  with  starry  flowers  rather  than  the  brown 
markings,  and  are  puzzling  to  account  for  without  getting 
inside  a  bee  and  seeing  with  its  compound  eyes  and  thinking 
with  its  decentralised  ganglionic  brains.  In  the  other  chry- 
santhus  forms,  with  very  rare  exceptions  the  little  barbs  at 
the  base  of  the  arrow-shaped  anthers  are  tipped  with  black. 
There  again,  what  can  that  be  for  ?  Why  should  chrysan- 
thus  alone  of  yellow  Croci  benefit  by  these  minute  spots  ? 
One  has  to  look  rather  closely  to  see  them  at  all  even  in 
an  expanded  flower,  and  they  cannot  be  visible  to  a  bee 
until  it  has  settled  on  it,  and  I  cannot  think  they  are  put 
there  to  help  good  patient  botanists  to  recognise  this  other- 
wise variable  species,  or  they  would  surely  be  on  the  fusco- 
tinctus  forms  too.  At  the  same  time  they  do  often  help  to 
point  out  a  chrysanthus  without  reference  to  the  corm  tunic, 
but  I  have  known  them  absent  in  some  pure  yellow  and 
pallidus  forms. 

One  of  the  smallest  of  Crocuses,  known  as  C.  biflorus 
Pestalozzae,  but  deserving  specific  rank  I  believe,  and  which 
I  hope  some  day  to  reinstate  in  that  proud  position, 
always  has  minute  black  spots  just  where  the  filament 
joins  on  to  the  perianth,  making  the  flower  look  as 
though  some  grains  of  soil  had  dropped  into  it.  Again, 
C.  Crewei  and  a  very  strange  rare  little  blue  one  thought 
to  be  a  form  of  C.  tauri  and  called  v.  melanthorus,  have 
86 


Spring  Crocuses 


the  anthers  jet  black,  and  so  has  a  winter  flowering  one 
from  Palestine,  C.  hyemalis,  var.  Foxii. 

Without  the  means  for  private  interviews  with  the 
bees  of  their  native  land  these  questions  must  remain 
unanswered,  and  for  the  present  be  placed  with  those 
things  "  no  fellah  can  understand." 

Another  of  these  insoluble  riddles  is  why  Miller 
in  the  great  Dictionary  originated  the  name  biflorus  for 
his  species  No.  4.  It  is  quite  the  ordinary  rule  for 
Spring  Crocuses  to  produce  at  least  two  flowers  from 
each  set  of  leaves  wrapped  round  by  a  spathe  or  sheath 
as  Miller  puts  it.  C.  gargaricus  is  the  only  one  I  can 
recall  that  is  usually  one-flowered,  but  Miller  knew 
others  bore  two,  and  described  his  No.  3  as  so  doing. 
Dean  Herbert  goes  further,  and  in  his  diagnosis  states 
"  scapo  (vidi  ipse)  interdum  furcato  bifloro,"  so  reading  a 
deeper  meaning  into  Miller's  simple  words.  Like  the 
Snark : 

"  He  summed  it  so  well  that  it  came  to  far  more 
Than  the  witnesses  ever  had  said." 

But  expositors  of  Browning  and  commentators  on  the 
deep  sayings  of  other  poets  as  well  as  Herbert  are 
equally  Snarkish  in  their  powers  of  summing. 

C.  biflorus  in  some  forms  is  hard  to  distinguish  from 
chrysanthus.  There  is  a  sheet  of  specimens  in  Maw's 
herbarium  in  the  British  Museum,  collected  above  Scutari, 
and  labelled  C.  biflorus  nubigenus,  but  most  of  them  have 
the  tell-tale  black  barbs,  and  I  find  living  plants  of  them 
that  I  have  here  give  me  regular  chrysanthus  seedlings. 
87 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

I  have  lately  raised  and  received  from  others  forms  inter- 
mediate between  the  two  species,  of  the  build  of  biflorus 
v.  Weldenii,  the  Dalmatian  form  of  this  widely-spread 
species  biflorus,  but  instead  of  a  white  ground-colouring 
they  are  of  exquisite  shades  of  pale  sulphur,  and  variously 
freckled  or  feathered  externally,  like  some  Weldenii  forms, 
with  soft  lilac,  and  are  very  lovely  things  apart  from  their 
interesting  intermediate  relationship.  Their  mixed  blood 
is  further  shown  by  a  tendency  to  grey  on  the  anther, 
either  as  spots  on  the  barbs  or  on  the  whole  length.  This 
Dalmatian  form  Weldenii  is  represented  further  east  in 
Servia  and  Bulgaria  by  a  large  form  known  as  biflorus  v. 
Alexandri  with  yet  more  intense  external  markings,  and 
when  these  form  a  broad  band  of  amethyst  purple,  leaving 
only  a  narrow  margin  of  white,  it  is  one  of  the  most  lovely 
of  Spring  Crocuses  ;  the  contrast  of  the  pure  white  inner 
surface  and  the  rich  purple  outer  segments  is  a  thing  to 
sit  down  and  look  at.  I  have  now  seedlings  that  have  the 
ground  colour  of  various  shades  of  lilac  and  the  outer 
markings  as  in  Alexandri.  The  first  one  appeared  with- 
out warning  in  the  rock  garden,  evidently  self  sown,  and 
another  unbirthday  present  from  the  garden,  a  little  thing 
of  its  own  compose,  as  the  parish  clerk  called  his  doggerel 
version  of  the  Psalm  of  the  hopping  hills,  for  it  appeared  a 
year  before  I  had  obtained  the  wild  lilac-grounded  bi- 
florus var.  Adami — a  pretty  form  from  the  Caucasus 
but  not  over-robust  in  the  open  ground. 

C.  biflorus  is  best  known  in  its  old  garden  form  of  the 
Scotch  Crocus,  large  flowered  and  white,  beautifully  striped 
outside  with  deep  purple,  and  like  other  old  garden  favour- 
88 


Spring  Crocuses 

ites  quite  sterile.  Many  smaller  wild  forms  come  from 
Italy,  especially  from  round  Florence,  where  they  have  a 
pale  lilac  ground-colouring,  and  vary  into  the  pretty  form 
estriatus,  which  has  no  stripes  on  the  external  buff  of  the 
outer  segments.  This,  as  a  hardy,  dainty,  and  early  flower- 
ing form,  should  be  in  every  rock  garden  and  sunny 
border  where  tiny  bulbous  things  have  a  chance.  "Crocuses 
everywhere "  is  my  motto  here,  and  the  lower  shelving 
slopes  of  the  rock  garden  make  splendid  homes  for  the 
rarer  gems,  but  even  there  they  must  fit  in  with  herbaceous 
plants  such  as  (Enothera  speciosa,  Veronica  filifolia,  &c.,  which 
cover  the  ground  after  the  Crocuses  have  finished  with  it. 
And  here  you  will  find  the  forms  of  aerius,  which  one 
would  say  was  a  blue  counterpart  of  chrysanthus  from 
its  round  shape  and  narrow  leaves,  but  below  ground 
it  has  a  thin  jacket  instead  of  the  hard,  shell-like  covering 
of  chrysanthus.  Some  of  its  forms  have  rich  outer  mark- 
ings as  nearly  crimson  as  one  can  hope  for  in  a  Crocus, 
and  its  variety,major,is  one  of  the  finest  of  all  lilac  Crocuses, 
almost  deserving  to  be  called  blue.  There  is  no  real  blue 
one  so  far  as  1  know,  the  nearest  approach  to  it  being  a 
quaint,  rather  ill-tempered  midget  Messrs.  Barr  imported 
as  C.  tauri,  but  not  a  bit  like  the  great  tall  thing  Maw 
figured  under  the  name  a'nd  pronounced  to  be  more 
robust  than  any  Eastern  form  of  biflorus.  The  autumnal 
C.  speciosus  is  in  some  forms  nearly  blue,  but  in  many 
forms  of  biflorus  there  is  a  spot  or  line  or  two  of  real 
Prussian  blue  at  the  base  of  the  inner  segments,  and  if 
only  it  could  be  persuaded  to  spread  over  the  segments 
we  might  have  a  turquoise-blue  Crocus.  How  dread- 
89 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

fully  its  colour  would  fight  with  the  present  mauves  and 
lilacs  of  its  family  ! 

I  must  not  prattle  of  the  multitude  of  Crocus  forms 
for  which  I  have  labels.  They  all  possess  distinctions 
and  differences  for  me,  but  in  many  cases  are  better  seen 
than  read  about,  and  even  I  am  beginning  to  be  alarmed 
when  I  see  the  rows  of  labels  sticking  up  in  the  frames 
and  seed-beds  in  August  just  after  replanting.  <f  Looks 
rather  like  a  cemetery,  doesn't  it  ?  "  friends  mockingly  ask. 
"  I  don't  mind,"  say  I,  "  so  long  as  it  has  an  annual  re- 
surrection." I  may  be  forgiven,  however,  for  discoursing 
of  what  should  be  everybody's  Crocuses,  such  as  Imperati 
for  the  first.  There  are  two  distinct  races  going  about 
under  the  name.  One  is  the  wild  plant  from  the  country 
round  Naples,  the  other  I  have  never  yet  traced  to  its 
native  home,  and  rather  suspect  it  is  of  garden  origin. 
Herbariums  appear  to  have  only  the  Neapolitan  fellow. 
The  two  are  very  distinct ;  the  unmistakable  point  of  dif- 
ference is  in  the  spathe  valves,  those  wonderful  wrappings 
of  living  tissue-paper  that  enclose  every  Crocus  bud  in  its 
youth.  There  are  either  two  or  only  a  single  one,  and 
as  a  rule  the  number  of  these  floral  spathes  is  a  good 
specific  feature,  and  a  whole  species  has  either  a  mono- 
phyllous  or  diphyllous  spathe,  but  in  Imperati  all  the 
wild  Neapolitan  ones,  so  far  as  I  can  find  out,  have 
diphyllous  spathes,  and  every  author  who  describes  the 
wild  plant  mentions  the  two  spathes  but  makes  no 
mention  of  a  form  with  a  monophyllous  spathe.  Both 
have  the  same  colour-scheme,  warm  rosy  lilac  within,  and 
the  outside  of  the  three  outer  segments  striped  or  feathered 
90 


Spring  Crocuses 

with  purple  on  a  buff  ground,  but  from  a  garden  point  of 
view  the  diphyllous  form  is  in  most  respects  the  better 
plant,  having  larger  flowers  and  varying  endlessly  in  the 
degree,  or  even  absence,  of  the  outside  purple  featherings, 
and  even  varying  in  this  respect  from  season  to  season,  I 
am  sorry  to  say,  for  I  have  sometimes  selected  especially 
fine  seedlings  for  their  richness,  or  absence,  of  feather- 
ing, but  after  a  season  or  two  they  have  reversed  their 
scheme  of  decoration.  Except  a  few  forms  of  C.  versicolor 
I  have  never  known  another  species  of  Crocus  vary  as  to 
the  markings  of  the  offsets.  The  diphyllous  form  flowers 
over  a  long  period,  and  that  means  that  one  seldom  gets 
a  mass  out  at  one  time  on  a  clump. 

On  the  contrary,  the  monophyllous  form  scarcely 
varies  at  all  in  feathering,  and  is  most  punctual  in  blossom- 
ing in  the  early  part  of  January,  and  almost  every  plant 
in  a  clump  will  be  flowering  at  the  same  time.  It  stands 
up  higher  among  its  upright  leaves  than  the  diphyllous 
one  among  its  longer  recumbent  foliage.  I  used  to 
know  which  of  the  two  forms  the  different  nurserymen 
stocked,  but  both  forms  have  done  well  here,  and  it  is 
years  since  I  bought  any,  and  so  have  lost  touch  with  their 
sources.  The  diphyllous  form  has  sometimes  been  listed 
as  C.  Imperati  longiflorus,  or  purpureus,  and  such  a  name 
would,  I  expect,  still  bring  you  that  form,  but  there  was 
never  any  distinguishing  name  to  the  monophyllous  race. 
There  are  some  good  white  forms  of  the  diphyllous — one 
pure  white  except  for  a  cream-coloured  exterior  to  the 
outer  segments,  which  is  the  var.  albiflos  of  Herbert. 
Another  has  the  rich  purple  featherings  of  the  type  on 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

the  white  ground,  and  is  a  fine  variety.  Both  forms  are 
delightful  in  the  rock  garden  or  in  any  sunny  corner,  and 
the  diphyllous  race  are  great  seeders,  and  soon  colonise 
in  a  kind  home  where  hoes  harrow  not  too  harshly. 

C.  Sieberi  is  another  indispensable — one  of  the  earliest 
to  appear,  generally  showing  up  about  Twelfth  Night.  It 
is  chubby  in  shape  and  a  cool,  bluish-lilac  in  colour,  with  a 
very  rich  yellow  throat  ;  it  is  a  good  increaser  both  from 
seed  and  offsets,  and  though  it  comes  from  sunny  Greece 
is  very  hardy,  and  the  blossoms  stand  snow  and  frost 
better  than  many  others.  Max  Leichtlin  sent  out  a  good 
deep-coloured  form  of  it  as  C.  aftt'cus,  but  it  is  certainly 
no  more  than  a  good  variety  of  Sieberi.  The  Cretan  form 
is  one  of  the  most  glorious  of  all  known  Crocuses,  for  the 
ground  is  white,  the  throat  a  very  rich  orange  colour,  and 
the  outer  segments  are  marked  externally  with  bands  or 
streaks  of  a  curious  shade  of  purplish-crimson  unlike  that 
in  any  other  Crocus.  Unfortunately  it  is  very  rare  in 
gardens,  and  has  not  been  collected  for  a  great  many 
years,  as  it  is  said  Cretan  brigands  will  murder  even  good 
little  plant-collectors — honest  root-gatherers  as  Parkinson 
would  call  them — for  the  value  of  their  skins,  and  C.  Sieberi 
versicohr  grows  up  among  their  mountain  strongholds. 
Although  it  has  as  large  and  conspicuous  scarlet  stigmata 
as  any  Crocus  it  produces  but  little  pollen,  and  flowers 
later  than  other  forms  of  Sieberi,  so  I,  and  a  neighbour 
who  has  caught  Crocus  fever  from  me,  have  hard  work  to 
get  any  seeds  from  this  variety,  and  think  ourselves  lucky 
if  we  can  sow  half  a  dozen  each  season.  Some  of  the 
results  have  been  very  encouraging,  and  we  have  got  a  few 
with  the  red  markings  on  a  pale  lavender  ground  colour. 
92 


Spring  Crocuses 

C.  Tomasinianus  is  the  Crocus  for  spreading  by  seed  into 
natural  drifts,  or  filling  a  border  or  slope  of  rock  garden. 
It  replaces  vernus  in  Eastern  Europe,  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  find  any  definite  botanical  character  to  distinguish  it 
from  that  variable  species.  Here  it  certainly  hybridises 
with  some  forms  of  vernus.  Maw  states  that  its  glabrous 
throat  distinguishes  it  from  vernus,  but  I  have  never  yet 
seen  a  flower  of  it  that  lacks  a  plentiful  supply  of  white 
hairs  in  the  throat,  and  can  only  imagine  he  had  some 
peculiar  form  of  it.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  a  beardless 
form  of  vernus.  Tom,  as  I  feel  inclined  to  call  it  for  short 
and  knowing  him  so  well,  is  a  variable  plant ;  some  races 
have  nearly  white  outsides  and  in  bud  look  dull,  but  half- 
opened  and  showing  the  lavender  interior  are  very  pretty. 
I  prefer  the  deeper-coloured  ones  though,  and  have  selected 
some  warm,  rosy-purple  forms,  and  have  got  still  deeper- 
coloured  seedlings  from  them.  I  have  also  a  pure  white 
that  is  good  for  contrast,  but  not  an  improvement  in  a 
species  whose  chief  charm  lies  in  its  peculiarly  amethystine 
shade  of  lilac.  One  day  I  went  into  the  garden  to  try 
and  forget  a  raging  toothache,  and  nearly  succeeded,  for 
a  lovely  Tom  seedling  caught  my  eye,  a  rosy-hued  one 
with  the  addition  of  nearly  white  tips  to  each  segment, 
and  under  each  white  mark  a  spot  of  violet-purple,  after 
the  style  of  the  form  of  vernus  called  leucorhynchus.  The 
treasure  was  removed  to  the  frame  and  has  increased  to 
hundreds,  and  has  gone  into  many  other  gardens,  but  if 
you  want  to  know  the  end  of  the  tooth  you  must  ask  my 
dentist ;  it  passed  from  my  keeping  to  his.  I  want  to  get 
Tom  freely  grouped  in  the  grass,  but  it  does  not  increase 
much  there  :  in  a  sunny  border  it  conquers  new  territory 
93 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

at  a  surprising  rate,  being  a  great  seeder,  and  also  splitting 
into  many  small  offsets  from  the  larger  corms.  It  is  appear- 
ing in  tufts  all  along  the  path  edges  of  the  rock  garden, 
the  result  of  seeds  getting  swept  in  among  the  edging  stones. 

C.  versicolor  is  the  last  I  shall  insist  upon  your  regard- 
ing as  a  garden  necessity,  and  if  you  cannot  get  hold  of 
the  wild  form  from  the  Alpes  Maritimes  or  the  Riviera, 
variable,  delicately  coloured,  and  feathered  beauties  of 
endless  kaleidoscopic  possibilities,  you  should  grow  a 
garden  form  known  as  var.  picturatus,  with  white  ground- 
colour and  crimson-purple  featherings.  Versicolor  is  the  one 
Crocus  in  which  the  inner  segments  are  as  a  rule  striped  or 
feathered  on  the  inner  surface.  A  few  garden  forms  of  vernus 
and  the  wild  one  siculus  are  slightly  so,  but  versicolor  seems 
to  take  a  pride  in  internal  decoration  beyond  all  others. 

I  cannot  pass  to  another  chapter  without  mentioning 
C.  Fleischeri,  a  starry  little  creature,  but  one  that  wears  a 
scarlet  feather  in  the  centre,  the  finely-divided  stigmata  of 
course.  They  are  so  brightly  coloured  that  they  glow 
through  the  white  segments  of  the  closed  bud  much  as 
the  yolk  of  a  woodpecker's  egg  does  through  the  shell, 
giving  it  a  pink  glow  that,  alas  !  disappears  as  soon  as  it  is 
blown.  Then  too  there  is  C.  carpetanus,  which  is  peculiar  in 
two  respects  ;  it  has  a  pale  lilac  stigma,  but  not  so  hand- 
some or  bright  as  that  of  the  autumnal  byzantinus,  and 
it  also  has  a  leaf  that  in  section  is  semi-cylindrical,  with 
raised  ribs  on  the  under  side,  and  no  lateral  blades  as  in 
other  Crocuses.  It  has  a  very  pretty  soft  lilac  flower,  but 
is  not  a  robust  grower.  Underground  even  it  is  peculiar, 
and  wears  a  covering  of  fibres  more  like  tow  than  the  coat 
of  a  respectable  Crocus. 

94 


CHAPTER  VI 

Numerous  Early  Comers 

FOLLOWING  close  on  the  heels  of  the  Crocuses  come  Sct'tta 
bifolia  and  Chionodoxa  sardensis  racing  Anemone  blanda  for 
the  honour  of  forming  the  first  blue  carpeting  of  the  year, 
for  not  one  of  these  is  much  use  as  dots  or  stiff  little  rings 
in  front  of  a  large  label,  and  all  are  quite  unsuitable  for  the 
modern  millionaire's  made-by-contract,  opulent  style  of  gar- 
dening— a  thing  I  hate  rather  than  envy,  so  don't  make 
mental  remarks  about  the  proverbial  acidity  of  the  immature 
fruit  of  the  vine.  The  filling  of  so  many  square  yards  of 
prepared  soil  with  so  many  thousands  of  expensive  bulbs, 
to  yield  a  certain  shade  of  colour  for  a  fortnight  and  then 
to  be  pulled  up  to  make  place  for  another  massing,  gives 
me  a  sort  of  gardening  bilious  attack,  and  a  feeling  of  pity  for 
the  plants  and  contempt  for  the  gardening  skill  that  relies 
upon  Bank  of  England  notes  for  manure.  But  I  love  a 
large  colony  of  some  good  plant  that  you  can  see  has 
spread  naturally  in  a  congenial  home,  aided  by  the  loving 
care  of  an  observant  owner.  It  has  the  same  charm  of 
refinement  and  antiquity  that  one  gets  from  an  old  house 
where  the  Chippendale  chairs  and  cabinets  have  stood  on 
the  same  polished  boards  and  time-toned  carpets  ever 
since  they  were  new.  It  is  a  case  of  good  taste  and 
knowledge  from  the  first,  and  watchful  care  and  apprecia- 
95 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

tion  and  absence  of  the  weathercock  giddiness  that  is 
influenced  by  gusty  Fashion  with  a  large  F  if  you  please. 
Buy  as  many  Scilla  bifolia  as  you  can  afford,  then,  but 
choose  them  a  permanent  home.  Among  the  roots  of  a 
wildish  group  of  briar  roses  is  a  good  situation,  or  even 
among  dwarf  heaths,  so  long  as  they  are  not  the  red  carnea 
— the  flowering  periods  of  these  two  coinciding  and  proving 
somewhat  too  competitive  to  please  me  ;  but  almost  any- 
where will  do  among  permanently  planted  larger  plants  that 
can  stand  a  spring  carpet  of  blue  at  their  feet.  Then  leave 
them  alone  to  seed  and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth. 

There  is  a  great  charm  about  the  red,  polished  noses 
they  thrust  through  so  early,  and  which,  on  a  sunny 
day,  suddenly  split  asunder  and  reveal  the  neatly-packed 
flower-buds,  looking  like  a  blue  ear  of  wheat.  This  is 
only  promise,  and  the  reward  comes  when  the  two  leaves 
lie  close  to  the  ground,  and  the  blue  spikes  are  feathery 
sprays.  It  sometimes  happens  that  the  collected  bulbs 
have  a  few  Chionodoxas  mixed  among  them,  but  there 
is  no  harm  in  this,  as  the  colours  do  not  fight  at  all, 
and  the  Chionodoxas  carry  on  the  flowering  for  a  week 
or  two.  I  have  purposely  mixed  them  in  a  large  bed  of 
briar  roses  that  I  am  allowing  to  carpet  itself  with  them. 
The  Scilla  comes  first,  then  C.  sardcnsis,  followed  by  the 
interesting  bi-generic  hybrid  forms  known  as  Chionoscillas, 
which  are  sure  to  appear  wherever  the  two  genera  are 
grown  together.  I  believe  C.  Ludliae  enters  into  most  of 
these  rather  than  sardensis,  but  the  early  flowering  of 
Scilla  is  almost  always  inherited,  and  the  hybrids  flower 
before  Ludliae  is  fully  open.  The  most  easily  noticed  dis- 
tinction between  Scilla  and  Chionodoxa  is  the  difference 
96 


Crown  Imperials.      By  Margaret  Waterfield 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

of  the  filaments  of  their  stamens  ;  in  Scilla  they  are  filiform, 
that  is  slender  and  threadlike,  but  in  Chionodoxa  they  are 
flattened  out,  wide  at  the  base,  and  tapering  upwards,  so 
that  they  lie  close  to  one  another,  forming  a  cone  in  the 
mouth  of  the  flower,  and  are  conspicuously  white.  In  the 
hybrids  they  are  of  every  intermediate  width,  and  readily 
catch  the  eye  even  if  they  are  the  only  mark  that  shows 
the  mixed  parentage.  C.  gigantea  can  be  used  to  follow 
Luciliae,  but  its  colouring  is  rather  too  pink  a  blue  to  carry 
on  the  same  effect,  and  the  form  sold  as  Luciliae  Boissier  is 
a  better  colour,  being  very  nearly  Luciliae  only  flowering 
later  and  having  more  white  in  the  eye,  and  leading  on  to 
C.  Tmoli  (wrongly  spelt  Tmolusii  sometimes,  as  if  named 
after  a  man  instead  of  the  mountain),  but  which  I,  and 
also  the  Dutch  growers,  find  has  a  habit  of  dying  after 
seeding,  otherwise  it  would  be  a  pleasant  wind-up  to  the 
Chionodoxa  season.  Some  of  the  Chionoscillas  are  worth 
looking  after,  and  several  have  been  named.  Mr.  Allen 
took  an  interest  in  them,  and  selected  several  good  ones. 
His  variety,  Volunteer,  is  one  of  the  best  of  a  good  sardensis 
blue  and  very  free,  and  his  Queen,  a  charming  soft  pink,  is 
one  of  my  most  precious  gems,  but  alas  !  a  great  rarity. 
Now  and  then,  a  large  or  extra  bright  one  has  appeared 
here,  and  tempted  me  to  burrow  to  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  for  its  bulb,  so  as  to  remove  it  to  a  safe  corner  of 
the  rock  garden.  This  burrowing  is  difficult  when  one 
has  to  go  some  eight  or  more  inches  among  the  plants, 
and  I  use  another  special  tool  of  my  own  compose  for  it. 
An  ordinary  "  lady's  fork "  of  four  tines  furnishes  the 
raw  material  for  my  inventive  genius  to  work  upon,  a 
coarse  file  my  coadjutor :  mind  and  muscle  and  metal 
97  G 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

then  get  to  work,  and  off  come  the  two  outer  tines,  and  I 
have  a  lovely  giant's  toothpick  that  almost  always  accom- 
panies me  when  in  the  garden.  Hark  to  a  list  of  its  virtuous 
uses.  It  goes  to  the  root  of  the  evil  in  cases  of  Dandelions 
and  Docks  unlike  any  other  weapon  :  a  plunge,  a  twist,  and 
the  tap-rooted  fiend  lies  vanquished  at  my  feet.  More 
gently  and  lovingly  inserted,  it  fetches  up  a  choice  bulb,  a 
rogue  among  the  Tulips,  or  a  new  seedling  of  great  price 
and  depth.  Again,  when  the  gardening  visitor  comes  with 
a  basket  and  wants  a  bit  of  something  good,  nothing 
removes  a  side  crown  so  neatly,  without  disturbing  the 
main  plant,  or  so  unerringly  extracts  the  very  piece  your 
critical  eye  selects  as  best  spared,  and  your  affection  for 
your  guest  settles  the  extent  of,  as  this  two-pronged 
walking-stick.  It  nearly  got  patented  and  put  on  the 
market  by  an  enterprising  firm  who  read  Mr.  Donald 
McDonald's  praises  of  it  after  a  visit  here,  and  I  gave 
measurements  and  inspected  models,  but  the  Bowles  Fork 
has  not  appeared,  and  being  so  easily  made  from  the  four- 
tined  variety  is  perhaps  not  yet  needed. 

I  have  a  very  superior  form  of  Scilla  bifolia  here,  that 
we  call  var.  taurica.  It  was  given  me  many  years  ago 
by  Dr.  Lowe  of  Wimbledon,  one  of  the  many  mementoes 
I  possess  of  his  kindness  and  generosity,  and  a  very 
pleasant  friendship  that  has  left  many  marks  of  betterment 
on  me  and  my  garden. 

Although  it  is  many  years  since  the  Scilla  came  to  me, 
I  have  but  one  small  clump,  for  it  never  bears  seed,  and 
increase  by  offsets  is  rather  slow,  as  friends  admire  it 
so,  and  I  have  such  a  foolishly  soft  heart  that  will 
persuade  me  I  can  spare  just  one  more  bulb.  Its  great 
98 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

beauty  lies  in  the  crimson  anthers  of  a  freshly-opened 
flower,  and  a  neatness  of  habit,  stiff,  sturdy  stalks,  and 
close-set  spikes  of  larger  flowers,  and  a  softer  tone  of  blue 
than  in  the  type.  Those  I  have  bought  at  various  times 
bearing  the  same  name  have  been  nothing  but  strong  bulbs 
of  ordinary  bifolia.  It  is  hard  to  get  hold  of  the  forms 
of  bifolia,  for  few  lists  include  any  but  alba  and  carnea. 
The  former  is  a  lovely  little  thing,  most  suitable  for  the 
rock  garden,  and  carnea  is  very  much  like  it  but  only 
carnea  by  courtesy,  for,  unless  within  a  few  hours  of  its 
opening,  it  will  have  faded  to  an  ivory  white.  The  rare  old 
var.  rubra  is  a  lovely  thing,  rosy-salmon  in  colour,  and  so  big 
and  strong-looking  you  would  expect  it  to  ramp  and  fill  the 
garden,  whereas  in  reality  it  seldom  makes  an  offset,  and 
has  never  set  seed  here.  Mr.  Allen's  seedling  raised  from 
it  and  called  Pink  Beauty  is  rather  earlier  and  a  fainter, 
more  rosy  pink,  and  rather  better  at  increasing.  Another 
of  his  raising,  var.  purpurea,  has  deep-red  stamens  and  a 
purplish  tone  of  blue,  and  is  distinct  but  rather  heavy  in 
colour,  and  not  so  pleasing  as  the  type  unless  looked  at 
closely.  There  is  a  little  colony  of  these  forms  in  the  rock 
garden,  in  a  flat  bed  that  is  overrun  later  in  the  year  by 
Convolvulus  tenuissimus  (the  plant  generally  wrongly  labelled 
as  C.  althaeoides,  which  has  a  much  larger  and  paler  flower 
with  purple  eye,  and  is  more  tender,  living  but  refusing  to 
flower  here),  which  throws  a  veil  of  silver  leaves  and  bright, 
rose-coloured  flowers  over  the  summer  sleep  of  the  Scillas. 
In  the  same  bed  I  have  the  form  I  like  best  of  Scilla 
stbirica,  known  as  var.  multiflora.  It  won  my  affection  by 
its  habit  of  blossoming  three  weeks  earlier  than  the  type,  and 
I  prefer  its  lighter,  less  aggressively  Prussian  blue  colouring 
99 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

for  associating  with  other  Scillas.  It  seeds  freely,  and 
its  children  inherit  the  parental  colouring  and  early  rising 
habit.  The  white  5.  sibirica  grows  near,  and  is  also  lavish 
in  seminal  increase,  and  a  few  early-flowering  whites  have 
appeared  that  I  am  watching  anxiously,  and  hoping  they 
have  inherited  the  best  traditions  of  both  families. 

Hyacinthus  azureus  is  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  the 
small  and  earlies,  but  like  eating  soup  with  a  fork,  one 
never  gets  enough  of  it.  It  is  cheap  enough,  only  three 
shillings  a  hundred,  yet  I  never  saw  a  garden  that 
could  show  so  many.  I  vow  that  next  planting  season 
I  will  let  six  sixpences  go  bang  and  try  to  grow 
a  century  of  spikes  of  its  pure  turquoise  bells.  It  is 
very  lovely  grown  beside  Crocus  aureus;  their  colours 
are  not  too  violent  in  contrast,  as  at  their  early  appear- 
ance there  is  plenty  of  brown  earth  for  background.  Two 
quaint,  squat  little  Ornithogalums  flower  in  the  very 
beginning  of  the  year,  opening  a  flower  at  a  time  during 
any  intervals  of  decent  weather  ;  one  is  O.  Haussknectii, 
which  I  advise  the  inventors  of  English  names  to  call  the 
Horse's  Necktie  Bird's-milk,  and  the  other  O.  libanoticunt, 
and  Pompey  and  Caesar  are  very  much  alike,  especially 
Pompey.  I  won't  say  they  are  strikingly  beautiful,  but 
in  January  one  is  pleased  to  see  their  greyish-white,  green- 
streaked  flowers  flattened  down  among  their  rosettes  of 
leaves.  One  dreadful  winter  I  was  obliged  to  spend  in 
London  helping  to  nurse  my  brother  through  typhoid 
fever  and  all  its  complications,  and  on  a  dreary  December 
day  kind  Dr.  Lowe  came  to  inquire,  and  brought  with  him 
from  his  garden  of  treasures  a  bulb  or  two  of  a  charming 
little  Muscari  in  full  bloom.  He  told  me  he  went  round 
100 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

his  garden  to  see  what  he  could  bring  to  cheer  me,  and 
this  bright  little  Grape  Hyacinth  suggested  itself.  It  lived 
in  my  window  in  that  London  square  until  I  could  bring 
it  and  my  Convalescent  home,  so  for  association's  sake  alone 
I  should  treasure  it,  but  I  also  rejoice  in  its  wee  blue 
flowers,  which  never  fail  to  appear  in  a  succession  from 
December  to  March. 

I  never  had  a  name  for  it,  but  have  called  it  Dr.  Lowe's  ; 
it  is  probably  a  form  of  M.  botryoides,  and  I  have  forgotten, 
if  he  ever  told  me,  where  he  got  it  from.  He  was  one  of  a 
delightful  old  school  of  amateur  gardeners,  a  friend  of  Miss 
Hope,  Harpur-Crewe,  Miss  Marianne  North,  Isaac  Henry, 
and  many  others,  only  venerated  names  to  me,  but  many 
of  their  treasures  have  passed  into  my  hands  through 
Dr.  Lowe's  kindness  to  me  when  a  struggling  beginner. 
Puschkinia  scilloides,  the  Striped  Squill,  I  owe  to  him,  a 
pretty  little  grey  thing  like  the  ghost  of  a  Scilla  come  back 
to  earth  ;  and  if  you  buy  what  is  offered  as  P.  libanotica  you 
will  get  scilloides,  for  they  are  but  one  and  the  same,  though 
often  listed  as  distinct,  and  sometimes  you  are  invited  to  pay 
more  for  one  than  for  the  other,  so  always  buy  the  cheaper. 

Cyclamen  Count  and  C.  ibericum  and  their  garden-raised 
hybrid  offspring  Atkinsii  should  have  been  showing  crimson 
or  white  buds  lying  on  the  earth  since  mid-December,  and 
be  raising  them  up  and  turning  back  their  petals  before  the 
days  grow  perceptibly  longer.  The  two  first  are  constantly 
confused  with  each  other,  but  are  easy  to  distinguish,  as 
Coum  has  plain  green  leaves,  while  those  of  ibericum  have 
more  or  less  of  handsome,  grey  spotting  or  zonal  bands,  and 
it  is  altogether  the  larger  and  handsomer  plant.  I  won't 
say  that  puzzling  hybrid  intermediates  besides  Atkinsii  do 
101 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

not  exist,  for  I  believe  there  are  several  in  Bitton  Garden, 
where  the  two  species  have  grown  side  by  side  for  nearly  a 
century,  that  are  distinctly  intermediate,  but  not  large  and 
handsome  enough  to  rank  for  garden  purposes  as  C. 
Atkinsii,  which  is  a  bolder  plant  with  larger  flowers  than 
those  of  either  parent.  C.  Coum  album  is  a  difficult  plant 
to  obtain.  Many  lists  contain  the  name,  but  the  plants 
that  arrive  bearing  it  are  either  C.  ibericum,  as  rosy  as  red 
tape,  or  C.  cilicicum,  an  autumn-flowering  member  of  the 
family  with  conspicuously  mottled  leaves.  One  or  two 
such  names  seem  to  exist  in  catalogues  simply  to  provide 
aliases  for  plants.  It  is  rather  amusing  to  gamble  with 
some  and  see  what  you  will  get  for  them.  Crocus  lactiflorus 
I  especially  recommend ;  it  is  a  bran-pie,  lucky  dip,  and 
surprise  packet  all  in  one ;  you  never  know  whether  an 
order  for  half  a  dozen  will  produce  an  autumnal  or  vernal 
species,  and  many  of  my  rarities  came  to  me  so  named. 
Lathyrus  magellanicus  is  another,  Anacyclus  formosus  a  third. 
I  imagine  no  plant  is  grown  by  the  author  of  the  list 
under  these  names,  and  so  the  packer  turns  round  three 
times  and  catches  what  he  can.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  am 
not  getting  rather  extravagant  over  Cyclamen.  I  love  them 
so  that  I  order  a  few  hundreds  each  season,  and  sow  seeds 
as  well,  but  I  never  yet  saw  a  garden  containing  too  many 
of  them,  and  it  will  be  a  long  day  before  this  one  provides 
enough  to  please  me.  With  one  species  and  another  they 
are  in  flower  very  nearly  all  the  year  round.  Coum  and 
ibericum  begin  with  the  year,  and  before  they  are  over 
C.  repandum  has  opened  out  its  ivy-shaped  leaves,  pushing 
them  along  underground  until  they  come  up  far  away 
from  the  centre  of  the  corm,  making  you  think  they  must 
102 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

belong  to  seedlings.  They  appear  above-ground  folded  in 
two  like  a  butterfly  with  closed  wings,  and  soon  after  them 
come  the  buds.  I  was  greatly  pleased  with  a  form  I  got 
from  Holland  in  the  autumn.  It  is  called  var.  roseum,  and 
is  a  pretty  pale  pink  and  marvellously  floriferous.  I  used 
to  have  a  fine  plant  of  a  pure  white  form,  but  it  died  and 
I  cannot  get  another  as  good,  all  I  have  bought  lately 
for  white  being  nothing  but  a  faded  or  overworn  pink  as 
the  sixteenth  century  gardeners  call  it.  The  bright,  rosy 
type  form  is  very  good,  and  carries  on  the  season  until 
C.  europaeum,  the  sweetly-scented  gem  from  Italian  woods 
and  Tyrolean  hillsides,  begins  to  flower.  It  does  so  about 
the  end  of  May  here,  and  goes  on  until  September  is 
middle-aged  and  the  truly  autumnal  forms  are  in  full  swing. 
The  largest  flowerer  of  the  hardy  forms  is  C.  libanoticum, 
unfortunately  rare,  rather  expensive,  and  none  too  easy  to 
grow.  The  happiest  I  possess  are  on  a  burnt-up  dry 
slope  of  rock  garden  overhung  by  an  old  thorn  ;  the  soil  is 
dry  as  dust  all  the  summer,  and  I  suppose  the  slopes  of 
Lebanon  are  not  very  different  at  that  season,  and  so  it 
feels  at  home  where  nothing  else  but  a  few  Sempervivums 
exist  for  long  together. 

I  am  very  fond  of  the  Spring-flowering  Colchicums,  but 
unfortunately  slugs  are  also,  and  those  greedy  gasteropods 
and  I  have  a  race  for  who  can  see  the  flower-buds  first. 
If  I  win  I  go  out  after  dark  with  an  acetylene  lamp  and  a 
hatpin  and  spear  the  little  army  of  slugs  making  for  the 
tea-party  at  the  sign  of  the  Colchicum.  C,  hydrophilum  and 
libanoticum  are  two  closely-related  eastern  species ;  the 
former  from  the  Taurus  has  the  more  richly-coloured 
flowers,  and  the  Lebanon  one  the  larger  and  better  shaped. 
103 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Both  are  attractive  so  early  in  the  year,  but  the  two  I  like 
best  are  C.  luteum,  the  only  yellow  one  of  the  family,  and 
C.  crociflorum,  a  charming,  little  white  flower  with  purple 
lines  running  up  the  back  of  each  segment,  a  very  good 
imitation  of  a  small  Crocus.  They  have  existed  for  some 
years  in  the  rock  garden  in  ordinary  soil,  but  I  believe  the 
sand  moraine  with  underground  waterpipe  would  suit  them 
best.  It  certainly  agrees  with  their  wilful  cousin  Bulbocodium 
vernum,  a  plant  I  could  never  induce  to  settle  down  and  be 
cosy  until  I  indulged  myself  in  the  luxury  of  what,  for 
want  of  a  better  name,  I  call  a  sand  moraine. 

As  I  suppose  it  is  inevitable  that  I  write  of  my  moraines, 
we  might  as  well  discuss  the  subject  here.  No  one  would 
read  a  gardening  book  nowadays  that  did  not  deal  with 
this  latest  fashion  in  gardening.  The  name  and  popularity 
and  prattle  of  the  thing  are  new,  but  many  good  cultiva- 
tors had  their  porous,  gritty,  raised  or  sunk  beds  for  alpines, 
whatever  they  called  them,  long  ago.  Mr.  Wolley-Dod 
laughingly  called  his  narrow  raised  mounds  "potato-ridges." 
But  they  proved  the  ideal  home  for  many  difficult  plants 
that  would  not  exist  domiciled  otherwise  on  the  cold,  sticky 
clay  at  Edge  Hall.  The  ridges  were,  as  I  remember  them, 
about  twenty  yards  long,  and  mainly  composed  of  grit  and 
leaf  soil,  and  ever  full  of  rare  and  healthy  plants.  The 
ridge  system  was  the  important  factor  of  success  at  Edge, 
but  in  the  hungry,  arid,  gravel  soil  at  Cambridge,  Mr.  Lynch 
found  a  sunk  bed  of  gritty  soil  made  a  happy  home  for 
Saxifrages  that  repined  and  went  into  a  decline  under  other 
treatment.  Then  arose  the  prophet.  The  abundant  rain- 
fall of  Ingleborough  and  the  local  limestone  (three  or  four 
lumps  of  which  make  any  sort  of  rock  gardening  a  thing 
104 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

of  beauty  if  only  one  side  of  the  block  be  bedded  up  with 
earth),  aided  and  abetted  by  river  silt  from  the  lake's  mouth 
and  chips  of  all  sizes  from  the  mountain  side,  were  only 
waiting  for  Mr.  Farrer's  master  mind  to  plan  their  com- 
bination and  lo  !  a  new  era  dawned.  The  most  discon- 
tented of  his  alpine  treasures  flourished,  the  great  news 
went  forth  to  the  world,  a  series  of  books  in  slate-coloured 
covers  became  the  foundation  of  conversation,  even  at 
dinner,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  those  who  wait  and  there- 
fore should  expect  all  things  to  come  to  them.  This  is  a 
fact:  a  head  gardener,  in  speaking  of  the  extraordinary  wave 
of  the  fashion  of  gardening,  told  me  that  the  men  in  the 
house  complained  bitterly  that,  whereas  once  upon  a  time 
they  picked  up  innumerable  sporting  tips  and  had  much 
interesting  gossip  to  listen  to,  nowadays  the  talk  at  dinner 
was  all  Latin  names  and  about  soils  and  gardening  books. 
Now  the  moraine  holds  the  field.  I  wonder  will  the  name 
live  unrivalled  until  these  words  are  published,  or  will 
someone  invent  a  terse  term  for  the  bed  with  underground 
pipes  that  promises  to  replace  the  plain  granite  chip 
arrangement  ?  I  hope  it  won't  be  called  the  glacier  j  it  is 
bad  enough  to  misname  as  moraine  a  square  yard  or  two 
of  a  hole  in  the  ground  filled  up  with  road-mending 
material  and  bristling  with  labels,  but  underground-water- 
bed  savours  of  chronic  invalids  and  hospitals,  and  is  also 
cumbrous.  Melting-snow  sounds  Japanesque  and  is  what 
one  is  trying  to  imitate,  but  as  I  did  not  invent  the  system 
I  do  not  feel  bound  to  name  it,  and  I  hope  it  will  be  in 
common  use  and  have  gained  a  familiar  name  before  this 
is  read.  Mr.  Grove  has  perfected  the  idea  in  his  marvel- 
lous garden  near  Henley,  and  I  have  seen  hosts  of  plants 
105 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

that  I  believed  were  impossible,  in  health  and  vigour  and 
jostling  each  other  in  his  piped  beds,  and  we  must  look  to 
him  for  light  and  guidance.  Mr.  Malby  has  experimented 
on  a  smaller  scale  with  beds  with  impervious  floors  and  an 
inlet  above  and  outlet  below,  and  has  found  them  very 
successful. 

Of  course  I  was  an  early  victim  of  the  moraine 
measles  after  my  first  visit  to  Ingleborough,  and  when 
next  the  Moraine  Magician  came  to  see  me,  he  helped  in 
planning  my  first  attempt  at  a  granite  chip  one.  My 
previous  experiments  had  not  been  over  successful;  a 
range  of  the  rock  garden  had  been  built  with  the  debris 
of  broken  Welsh  slate,  the  result  of  the  re-roofing  of  my 
brother's  house,  but  I  and  the  plants  find  it  rather 
uninteresting — too  dry  and  lean,  like  a  diet  of  cracknel 
biscuits  or  pulled  bread.  Another  mound  composed  of 
old  ceilings,  brick  rubble,  cinders,  and  gravel  exactly  suits 
my  outdoor  Cactuses  and  other  succulents,  of  which  more 
anon.  A  sloping  pocket  of  the  slate-roof  range  was 
cleared  out  and  filled  to  the  depth  of  two  and  a  half  feet 
with  granite  chips,  smaller  in  gauge  than  Mr.  Farrer 
usually  advises  to  meet  any  arid  climate  half-way,  and 
mixed  with  leaf  soil  it  has  suited  some  plants  admirably, 
but  contrary  to  all  my  hopes  needs  watering  morning 
and  evening  in  dry  weather,  and  so  is  not  much  better  in 
labour  saving  than  any  ordinary  bank  of  the  rock  garden. 
In  it  Androsace  hedraeantha  is  happy  and  seeds  about  ; 
Cerastium  alpinum,  var.  lanatum,  which  refused  to  live  with 
me  before,  now  wishes  to  fill  this  bed.  Edraianthus 
species  have  ceased  to  be  an  anxiety,  and  give  me  pleasure 
and  flowers.  Saponaria  lutea  is  as  happy  as  the  proverbial 
106 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

king,  though  no  more  yellow  than  the  paper  of  the  typical 
bun-bag,  and  were  it  not  a  rarity  and  collected  by  myself 
in  happy  hunting-grounds  I  should  not  greatly  care  if  it 
miffed  itself  away  as  under  former  treatment.  But  some 
of  them  do  not  like  overhead  watering  in  hot  weather,  so 
I  tried  experiments  in  a  corner  of  this  bed  to  see  whether 
I  could  keep  it  from  burning  up  so  quickly  by  mixing 
sand,  my  favourite  birdcage  variety,  with  the  chips  and 
leaf  soil.  Plants  loved  it  and  grew  wondrously,  but  wore 
it  out  rather  quickly,  and  still  it  needed  watering  oftener 
than  I  liked.  The  next  new  bed  was  made  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  path,  and  planned  to  hold  a  rather  richer  com- 
post of  leaf  soil,  peat  and  sand,  with  occasional  surfacings, 
admixtures,  or  even  unadulterated  patches  of  granite  chips  : 
but  the  most  important  innovation  was  a  leaden  pipe  with 
a  funnel-shaped  mouth  at  one  end  to  receive  water,  and 
two  rows  of  holes  bored  on  the  under  surface  at  intervals 
of  3  inches.  This  is  buried  in  the  bed  at  a  depth  of  6  to  8 
inches  according  to  the  slope  of  the  bed,  and  the  funnel 
comes  to  the  surface  and  is  covered  with  a  flat  stone,  that  can 
be  easily  lifted  off  when  it  is  wished  to  pour  a  can  or  two 
of  water  in.  We  arranged  the  fall  of  the  pipe  so  that  the 
water  ran  out  fairly  evenly  from  all  the  holes,  and  found  it 
needed  to  be  very  slightly  lower  at  the  end  farthest  from 
the  mouth.  This  bed  is  now  nearly  two  years  old,  and 
has  been  great  fun.  In  the  richer  peaty  end  Primula 
pedemontana  and  P.  Bowlesii,  the  latter  a  hybrid  from 
P.  pedemontana  and  P.  viscosa,  have  recovered  their  strength 
after  the  shock  of  being  collected  when  in  full  flower,  and 
flowered  well  this  Spring.  Astrantia  minor,  said  to  be 
impossible  in  England,  has  done  well  and  given  me  a 
107 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

fine  crop  of  seed.  Gentiana  verna,  collected  forms  from 
Mt.  Cenis,  mostly  of  the  angulosa  type,  and  G.  brachyphylla 
have  spread  into  good  tufts.  Campanula  cenisia  is  a  good 
test  plant,  and  has  settled  down  in  the  chippy  patch, 
while  Papaver  rhoeticum  looks  as  happy  as  it  did  in  its 
Tyrolean  shale  beds. 

Then  in  the  following  Spring  the  rock  garden  was 
enlarged,  a  new  wing  thrown  out,  and  there  was  a  chance 
for  a  fresh  venture  in  underground  watering.  A  steep 
bank  was  divided  into  large  pockets,  and  some  slabs  of 
old  slate  from  a  demolished  water-tank  were  used  to  pave 
the  bottom  of  the  pockets,  following  the  line  of  the  slope. 
Partition  walls  of  brick  and  cement  below  ground  and 
stone  above  were  arranged  so  that  water,  poured  down 
a  portion  of  drainpipe  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  would  fill 
each  pocket  up  to  a  certain  height  and  then  flow  through 
to  the  next.  It  took  some  time  to  construct  and  harden, 
and  so  was  empty  for  a  week  or  two,  and  I  was  chaffed 
by  all  my  garden  visitors  on  my  fish  hatchery  or  filter 
beds,  and  many  pleasantries  arose  from  my  adopting  Mr. 
Malby's  ingenious  plan  of  inserting  half  a  hock  bottle  at 
advantageous  corners,  so  that  in  winter  the  corks  might 
be  removed  and  the  beds  drained.  But  once  filled  up 
with  various  cunning  mixtures  of  sand  and  leaf  in  some 
parts,  and  old  mortar  rubble,  or  even  our  local  gravel 
screened  and  stirred  up  with  something  a  little  more 
feeding  in  others,  it  looked  like  any  ordinary  new  rock 
garden  bed,  and  many  things  have  astounded  me  by  the 
way  they  have  approved  of  it  and  spread  or  seeded. 
Viola  bosniaca  never  liked  me  and  my  ways  before,  and  I 
was  quite  as  much  ashamed  of  myself  as  any  really  keen 
108 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

gardener  need  be,  for  so  constantly  begging  bits  of  it 
from  more  successful  growers.  Now  I  weed  it  up  as 
well  as  supplying  all  who  come.  Douglasia  Vitaliana 
never  lived  here  long  enough  to  make  it  worth  while 
looking  up  its  synonyms,  so  as  to  make  up  my  mind 
whether  to  call  it  Aretia,  Androsace,  Gregoria,  Primula, 
Macrotybus  or  Vitaliana  primuloides,  for  it  has  received  a 
new  name  almost  as  often  as  it  has  died  under  my  tender 
care.  After  a  year  in  the  fish  hatchery  it  has  spread 
into  a  grey  mat  and  flowered  this  Spring  almost  as  solidly 
as  it  does  on  Mont  Cenis,  and  I  have  turned  its  history  up 
in  Pax  and  Knuth's  Primulaceae  volume  of  Das  Pflanzenreich, 
and  hope  it  will  live  here  as  long  as  it  shall  remain  a 
Douglasia,  for  surely  no  one  will  dare  alter  the  genera  as 
settled  by  that  redoubtable  pair  during  my  time.  Of 
course  one  must  always  discount  such  successes  by 
realising  that  many  plants  will  flourish  in  newly-disturbed 
soil  for  a  season  or  two  and  then  either  render  it  un- 
suitable for  them  or  they  themselves  grow  sick  of  it. 
Linaria  alpina  is  an  instance  of  this  ;  even  in  the  Alps  it  is 
only  on  landslides  or  new  earthworks  that  one  finds  it  in 
profusion.  I  have  even  seen  it  on  a  heap  of  grit  that 
had  been  left  by  the  roadside  after  a  part  of  it  had  been 
used  for  mixing  cement  for  a  new  house.  Here  it  will 
always  thrive  in  a  newly-constructed  bit  of  rock  garden, 
and  after  a  year  or  two  refuse  to  grow  even  if  carefully 
sown.  But  to  see  Soldanellas,  Primula  frondosa,  and  the 
alpine  form  of  Parnassia  palustris,  growing  in  apparently 
dry  sand,  and  a  little  way  below  Lewisia  Howelliis  salmon 
and  orange-coloured  flowers  contrasting  deliciously  with 
that  exquisite  gem  of  Campanulas  called  C.  caespitosa 
109 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Miranda  by  Mr.  Fairer  (but  with  a  big  query  at  present, 
and  which  I  owe  to  his  generosity,  for  it  goeth  not  forth 
for  pelf  at  present),  the  rounded  bells  of  which  are  a  pearly 
grey  of  indescribable  delicacy — to  see  all  these  so  con- 
tiguous and  so  happy  makes  my  visitors  wonder  and  fills  me 
with  pride  in  my  fish  hatchery.  The  New  River  is  so  close 
to  the  top  of  it  that  it  is  an  easy  job  to  pour  a  can  or  two 
of  its  contents  into  the  mouths  of  my  two  drainpipes,  and 
this  done  once  a  day  even  in  the  hot  dry  time  of  the  last 
summer  proved  sufficient  to  keep  the  lower  soil  moist. 

That,  then,  is  the  history  of  my  moraines.  I  call  the 
first  granite  chip  one  the  "  Farrer "  moraine,  the  second 
the  "sand"  moraine,  and  the  "lead  pipe  bed"  and  "fish 
hatchery"  will  refer  to  the  others. 

Now  to  go  back  to  the  Bulbocodium,  which  flourishes 
in  the  lead  pipe  bed,  but  do  not  imagine,  in  spite  of  this 
lengthy  digression,  that  the  moraines  were  made  on 
purpose  to  accommodate  it.  I  put  it  in  there  because 
I  was  so  pleased  to  see  the  way  it  grew  among  the 
Gentians  in  certain  gullies  by  the  Mt.  Cenis  lake,  and  then 
found  my  little  purple  friend  liked  it.  I  am  hoping  it 
will  also  agree  with  the  Spring-flowering  Merendera 
caucasica  and  sobolifera,  for  although  the  autumnal  M. 
Bulbocodium  is  fairly  happy  here  the  other  two  require 
frequent  renewal,  and  I  am  so  fond  of  their  quaint  wee 
flowers,  so  much  like  a  Colchicum  when  first  open  but  so 
ragged  and  untidy  when  the  segments  part  company  after 
a  day  or  two  of  prim  neatness.  The  mark  of  this  genus 
is  the  lack  of  a  perianth  tube :  the  segments  are  connivent 
at  first  opening,  that  is,  they  hang  together  at  the  throat, 
but  when  they  rise  a  little  out  of  the  leaves  each  segment 
JIQ 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

starts  away  from  its  neighbour,  and  you  see  that  they  are 
divided  right  down  instead  of  joining  to  form  a  tube  as  in 
Crocus  and  Colchicum.  Bulbocodium  vernwn  behaves  in 
the  same  way,  but  the  segments  of  the  perianth  are 
furnished  at  the  base  with  spurlike  outgrowths  which 
make  them  arrow-shaped,  and  keep  them  together  longer 
and  more  perfectly  than  in  Merendera.  I  like  to  grow 
these  plants  and  to  admire  the  transition  they  show  from 
free  perianth  segments  to  the  long,  perfectly-formed  tube 
as  found  in  Colchicum. 

Tucked  away  in  a  sunny  corner  among  Semper- 
vivums  lives  another  of  my  minute  favourites.  I  have 
often  been  accused  of  growing  and  loving  too  many 
microscopic  plants,  and  perhaps  Allium  Chamaemoly  is 
alone  sufficient  evidence  to  convict  me.  For  some  years 
I  was  surprised  to  find  seedpods  and  yet  to  have 
missed  its  flowers,  then  a  sharp  look-out  showed  me 
that  they  appeared  much  earlier  than  I  expected,  and 
were  very  much  smaller  than  I  had  hoped.  A  careful 
search  in  late  December  and  throughout  January  generally 
reveals  a  flower  or  two.  They  are  certainly  very  small, 
about  the  size  of  a  bee's  knee  their  detractors  might 
say,  but  they  are  dainty  little  green  and  white  stars, 
and  in  January  it  is  very  pleasant  to  find  anything 
that  is  a  flower. 

Another  first  comer  of  the  year,  but  different  in 
every  way  from  Chamaemoly,  except  that  you  do  not  see 
it  in  many  gardens,  is  the  Toothwort  of  the  Pyrenees, 
Lathraea  dandestina.  It  ought  to  be  in  every  garden, 
for  it  is  very  beautiful  when  in  full  flower,  looking  like 
a  colony  of  some  very  dwarf  purple  Crocus,  but  when 
in 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


you  look  closer  you  see  the  flowers  are  of  an  unfamiliar 
shape,  more  like  those  of  some  large  Sage  or  Dead 
Nettle,  but  not  a  labiate  ;  indeed,  it  is  a  plant  hard  to  place, 
for  its  relations,  the  Orobanches,  are  not  as  a  rule  well 
known  to  gardeners.  The  fact  that  it  is  a  parasite  makes 
it  difficult  to  establish.  First,  one  must  find  a  suitable 
host  in  a  suitable  place,  and  with  roots  in  a  condition 
to  be  pounced  on  by  the  Lathraea.  Poplar  and  Willow 
are  the  most  likely  trees  to  prove  hospitable  to  it,  but 
it  is  a  queer,  cranky  sort  of  plant,  and  you  cannot 
reckon  on  what  it  will  do.  After  careful  planting  it 
may  apparently  die  away,  and  then  after  two  or  more 
years  some  January  day  may  reveal  its  white  scales — 
leaves  it  has  none — breaking  through  the  ground  perhaps 
a  yard  away  from  the  place  you  planted  it  in ;  a  few 
years  later  still,  when  seeds  have  had  time  to  form 
and  fly  and  grow,  it  may  appear,  healthy  and  vigorous, 
far  from  the  range  of  the  roots  of  the  tree.  I  know 
of  an  instance  where  it  chose  to  board  itself  out  on  a 
Gunnera,  and  in  Cambridge  Botanic  Gardens  it  thrives 
as  well  across  the  streamlet  in  the  grass  as  on  the  other 
side  among  the  willows.  Here  I  chose  a  Weeping 
Willow  for  its  foster  mother,  thereby  paying  off  a  small 
grudge  I  owed  it.  I  made  a  luxurious  bed  of  good 
soil  at  its  feet  some  years  ago  for  Japanese  Irises,  but 
the  Willow  said,  "  First  come,  first  served,"  and  ate  up 
the  fatness  and  starved  out  the  /.  Kaempferi,  filling  the 
bed  with  its  fibrous  roots.  Among  these  I  planted  a 
sod  or  two  of  Lathraea,  some  of  them  kind  gifts  from 
Mr.  Lynch,  others  sent  by  my  Spanish  cousins,  and 
later  on  some  seeds  also  from  Cambridge.  I  cannot 
112 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

say  which  attached  themselves,  but  I  know  I  was  plan- 
ning a  fresh  attack,  both  on  the  Willow  and  Mr. 
Lynch's  generosity,  as  after  three  years  of  waiting  I 
saw  nothing  of  the  Toothwort,  and  then  it  appeared 
in  several  places,  and  since  then  has  spread  rapidly. 
First  it  pushes  the  scale-clad  stem  out  of  the  ground, 
a  strange-looking  creamy-white  mass,  of  seaweedy  or 
coral-like  appearance — or  is  my  memory  playing  me 
tricks  ?  Yes,  I  think  it  is,  and  you  had  better  not 
believe  me,  good  reader,  for  now  it  dawns  upon  me 
that  I  really  mean  neither  a  seaweed  nor  a  coral,  but 
two  products  of  the  Mollusca  that  one  finds  washed 
up  at  high  tide  level.  The  first  is  Flustra  foliacea,  some- 
times called  Scented  Seaweed,  but  really  the  dry  house  of 
a  dead  colony  of  one  of  those  strange  compound  molluscan 
animals  called  the  Polyzoa,  and  the  other  is  the  empty 
egg  mass  of  the  whelk,  both  when  dry  being  of  the 
same  creamy  white  as  the  Lathraea's  scales.  Yes,  these 
are  what  I  am  reminded  of  by  the  rosette  of  scales. 

It  is  a  foolish  plant  to  appear  so  early,  for  although 
the  white  scales  seem  to  be  unhurt  by  severe  frosts, 
the  purple  buds  which  emerge  from  between  them  are 
ruined  by  a  very  few  degrees,  and  look  brown  and 
sick  after  a  cold  night.  In  mild  spells  of  weather  I 
have  enjoyed  the  soft  lilac  mass  of  colour  in  late  January 
and  February,  but  it  is  not  until  the  Crocuses  are  over, 
that  is  to  say  early  April,  that  one  gets  the  full  effect 
from  it.  It  pushes  up  fresh  flowers  out  of  the  rosettes 
for  some  weeks  longer,  and  as  the  grass  grows  and 
shelters  them  the  later  flowers  are  larger  and  more 
attractive  than  the  earlier  ones. 

113  H 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

They  are  followed  by  fleshy  capsules  of  a  dull  purple, 
not  beautiful,  but  of  great  and  exciting  interest,  for  when 
the  seeds  are  ripe  enough  to  go  out  into  the  world  the 
walls  of  these  capsules  become  tensely  turgid  and  the  two 
valves  press  inward  on  each  other  very  powerfully,  so  that 
a  slight  shock  or  touch  at  the  summit  causes  them  to  split, 
and  each  valve  to  curl  inwards  with  such  force  that 
the  two  enclosed  seeds  are  shot  out  to  a  considerable 
distance.  I  greatly  enjoyed  taking  some  examples  of  ripe 
capsules  up  to  one  of  the  meetings  of  the  Scientific 
Committee  of  the  R.H.S.,  and  as  they  were  new  to  the 
members  present,  aided  by  my  position  as  acting  chair- 
man at  the  head  of  the  long  table,  while  I  was  describing 
the  mechanism  I  gave  them  a  pinch,  and  startled  the 
members  at  the  other  end  of  the  table  by  the  sudden 
impact  of  several  Lathraea  seeds.  At  the  right  season  I 
can  always  get  some  amusement  by  inducing  a  visitor  to 
press  a  bunch  of  ripe  capsules  and  noting  how  high  he 
jumps  when  the  seeds  fly  into  his  face,  and  after  this 
initiation  we  aim  over  the  pond  with  other  capsules  to  see 
what  distance  we  can  shoot  the  seeds  into  the  tell-tale 
water.  This  season  a  self-sown  plant  has  appeared  in  the 
grassy  bank  of  the  pond,  perhaps  the  result  of  one  of 
these  contests. 

I  have  sown  our  native  Lathraea  Squamaria  on  Hazel 
roots  several  times,  but  have  not  yet  seen  it  above-ground. 
Experience  with  its  more  showy  relation  preaches  hope 
and  patience,  so  I  still  look  for  its  appearance,  but  shall 
continue  to  sow  seeds  or  plant  clumps  whenever  I  can 
get  them. 

The  list  of  earliest  arrivals  cannot  be  closed  without 
114 


Numerous  Early  Comers 

mention  of  Winter  Aconites.  The  common  one,  Eranthis 
ht'emah's,  like  Chionodoxa,  is  one  of  the  test  plants  of  the 
established  maturity  of  gardens :  your  parvenu,  architect- 
planned,  and  colour-schemed  affair  can  seldom  include 
such  a  fine  drift  of  its  cheery  yellow  faces  in  their  green 
Toby  frills  as  one  may  see  in  the  garden  of  many  a 
parsonage  or  quiet  old  grange.  It  is  difficult  to  establish 
a  new  colony  of  it  unless  one  can  rob  an  old  one,  for  it 
is  one  of  those  plants  which  suffer  terribly  from  being 
kept  out  of  the  ground  any  length  of  time,  and  here  I 
find  the  best  time  to  transplant  it  is  during  its  period  of 
flowering.  Roots  bought  in  autumn  are  generally  sick 
unto  death. 

This  season  the  extraordinary  mildness  of  early 
December  brought  it  into  flower  quite  a  week  before 
Christmas,  and  the  blooms  were  small,  dingy,  of  thin 
texture,  with  no  staying  power  in  them,  and  they  came  out 
a  few  at  a  time  and  so  made  no  display,  being  one  of  the 
few  flowers  that  are  better  for  a  severe  winter  if  it  comes 
before  their  flowering  time.  Gerard  knew  this,  and  writes : 
"  The  colder  the  weather  is,  and  the  deeper  that  the  snow 
is,  the  fairer  and  larger  is  the  floure,  and  the  warmer  that 
the  weather  is,  the  lesser  is  the  floure,  and  worse  coloured." 
This  I  have  noticed,  and  take  to  mean  that  the  flowers  are 
better  for  being  kept  back  until  they  are  thoroughly 
matured  as  under  a  covering  of  snow,  and  then  burst  out 
with  the  thaw  in  full  strength  and  numbers. 

The  behaviour  of  seedlings  is  worth  noting :  they  con- 
tent themselves  for  their  first  season  with  no  leaves  other 
than  the  pair  of  cotyledons,  but  find  them  all-sufficient 
to  gather  enough  carbon  dioxide  from  the  air  to  add  to 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

their  root-collected  store  of  nutriment  to  form  a  neat  little 
tuber  before  the  summer  heat  dries  them  up.  E.  cilicica 
is  worth  having  too,  as  it  comes  after  the  older  species  has 
gone  out  of  flower,  and  its  red  stems  and  more  finely 
divided  frills  are  attractive.  It  is  beginning  to  colonise 
here  by  self-sown  seedlings,  but  I  fear  will  never  rival  the 
friend  of  one's  childhood,  which  is  in  more  than  one  sense 
first  in  the  field. 

Are  you  nervous  of  scorpions  ?  If  so  plant  a  wide 
ring  of  Winter  Aconite,  and  during  its  growing  season  at 
any  rate  you  can  feel  safe  in  the  centre  of  this  magic 
circle,  for  Gerard  tells  us  quite  gravely  it  "  is  of  such 
force,  that  if  the  scorpion  passe  by  where  it  groweth  and 
touche  the  same,  presently  he  becometh  dull,  heavy,  and 
senseless,  and  if  the  same  scorpion  by  chance  touch  the 
white  Hellebor  he  is  presently  delivered  from  his  drow- 
sinesse."  What  fertile  imaginations  those  old  gentle- 
men had ! 


116 


CHAPTER  VII 

Daffodils 

THE  people  who  talk  about  flowers  may  be  roughly 
divided  into  two  classes,  those  who  ask  and  those  who  are 
expected  to  answer  the  question,  "  What  is  the  difference 
between  a  Narcissus  and  a  Daffodil  ?  " 

I  appear  to  belong  to  the  latter  division,  and  answer, 
"  None  whatever,  one  being  the  Latin  and  the  other  the 
English  name  for  the  same  plant " ;  but  the  other  class 
are  never  satisfied  therewith,  for  they  want  a  difference, 
and  like  a  certain  fretful  baby  we  have  all  seen  pictures 
of — won't  be  happy  till  they  get  it.  So  I  take  down 
Parkinson's  Paradisus  and,  having  impressed  them  with  the 
antiquity  and  authority  of  that  great  man,  read  them  his 
words  of  wisdom,  for  he  writes :  "  Many  idle  and  ignorant 
Gardeners  .  .  .  doe  call  some  of  these  Daffodils  Narcisses, 
when,  as  all  that  know  any  Latine,  that  Narcissus  is  the 
Latine  name  and  Daffodill  the  English  of  one  and  the  same 
thing ;  and  therefore  alone,  without  any  other  Epithite 
cannot  properly  distinguish  severall  things."  If  that  does 
not  subdue  their  inquisitive  spirit  Gerard  may  be  called  as 
second  witness  to  testify  that  "  Generally  all  the  kindes 
are  comprehended  under  the  name  Narcissus,  in  English 
Daffodilly,  Daffodowndilly,  and  Primerose  Peereless." 

Clearly  these  two  great  fathers  of  English  gardening 
117 


My  Garden  in    Spring 

saw  no  difference  except  of  language  between  a  Narcissus 
and  a  Daffodil.  All  the  same  it  would  be  useful  to  have 
a  name  for  those  Narcissi  that  we  somehow  feel  ought  not 
to  be  called  Daffodils,  even  though  we  may  not  be  able 
to  find  one  better  than  the  word  Daffodil  with  some 
"  other  Epithite."  In  spite  of  Gerard  and  Parkinson  we 
shall  be  in  good  company  in  feeling  thus,  for  Turner  in 
The  Names  of  Herbes  writes :  "  This  that  we  take  for 
Daffodil  is  a  kind  of  Narcissus."  So  in  1548  it  was  felt 
that  though  all  Daffodils  were  Narcissi  yet  some  Narcissus 
might  not  be  a  Daffodil :  but  where  they  gave  Parkinson 
a  chance  of  calling  them  hard  names,  was  in  the  way  they 
used  the  Latin  name  of  the  whole  genus  for  certain 
members  of  it,  instead  of  choosing  some  distinguishing 
English  word  for  that  particular  group.  In  much  the 
same  way  now  people  use  the  generic  term  Viola  as 
though  it  belonged  only  to  the  particular  race  of  perennial 
garden-raised  Violas  that  have  been  well  named  Tufted 
Pansies.  It  would  be  equally  wise  to  start  calling  the 
Irish  Single  Tea  roses,  Rosas,  or  those  hairy  oubits  of  dogs, 
the  now  fashionable  Pekinese,  Canis. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  our  modern  idea  of  a  true 
Daffodil  is  not  that  of  Parkinson's  day.  Hear  him  on 
the  subject.  "Now  to  cause  you  to  understand  the 
difference  between  a  true  Daffodil  and  a  false,  is  this :  It 
consists  only  in  the  flower,  and  chiefly  in  the  middle  cup 
or  chalice  ;  for  that  we  do  in  a  manner  only  account 
those  to  bee  Pseudonarcissos,  bastard  Daffodils,  whose 
middle  cup  is  altogether  as  long  and  sometimes  a  little 
longer  than  the  outer  leaves  that  doe  encompasse  it,  so  that 
it  seemeth  rather  like  a  trunke  or  long  nose  than  a  cup 
118 


Daffodils 

or  chalice,  such  as  almost  all  the  Narcissi  or  true  Daffodils 
have."  In  fact  all  those  long-nosed  ones  which  we  like 
to  call  true  Daffodils  he  calls  bastard,  which  is  not  a 
pleasant  "  Epithite  "  to  give  to  an  honest  flower. 

Still  we  need  not  let  Parkinson's  views  weigh  too 
heavily  on  our  conscience,  for  does  he  not  include  as 
Narcissi,  Sternbergia,  Pancratium,  and  Zephyranthes,  this 
last  as  he  says  tl  not  finding  where  better  to  shroud  it "  ? 
A  still  more  glorious  dispensation  may  be  found  in  Spre- 
kelia's  appearance  as  the  Indian  Daffodil  with  a  red  flower  ! 
Narcissus  Jacobaeus ! !  The  vaunted  pink  daffodils,  this 
year's  most  sensational  exhibits,  cannot  vie  with  this 
crimson  glory.  Their  stripes  or  flushed  yellow  perianths 
remind  one  of  a  hen's  egg  that  was  left  too  long  under  the 
maternal  breast  to  be  appetising  when  boiled,  or  "  lightly 
poach  "  we  will  hope,  for  as  Mrs.  Green  knew,  "A  poach 
hegg  you  sees  naked  before  you,  an'  if  it  ain't  what  it  should 
be,  back  it  can  go  without  no  committin'  of  yourself  in  the 
way  of  a  broken  shell." 

Furthermore  the  word  Daffodil  is  such  a  thoroughly 
home-made  English  corruption  of  Asphodel  that  it  was 
probably  made  for  our  one  unquestionably  wild  species, 
N.  Pseudo-narcissus,  the  Lent-lily,  which  is  certainly  the 
swallows'  precursor  of  Shakespeare,  and  the  Daffodil  of 
Herrick  and  the  poets  generally. 

The  initial  D  has  never  been  satisfactorily  accounted 
for,  according  to  the  New  Oxford  Dictionary,  and  one 
must  bow  down  before  its  pontifical  authority,  even  though 
one  misses  certain  traditional  derivatives  that  lack  docu- 
mentary support,  omitted  by  its  strict  plan  of  relying  only 
on  historical  evidence.  I  am  sadly  disappointed  if  an 
119 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

English  history  omits  the  tale  of  Alfred  the  Great's  failure 
as  a  cook,  and  would  like  to  believe  many  fanciful  deriva- 
tions of  words  to  be  true.  It  is  a  tempting  text  for  a 
philological  sermon  that  D,  but  I  must  not  give  you  unto 
fifthly  and  lastly,  so  condense  it  into  the  half  sheet  of  notes 
which,  if  cunningly  concealed  in  a  book,  gives  a  preacher 
or  lecturer  a  reputation  for  extempore  fluency,  (i)  The 
D  may  be  due  to  playful  distortion,  as  in  Ted  from  Edward  ; 
(2)  part  of  the  definite  article  ;  (3)  the  final  d  of  and,  or  the 
Flemish  article  de.  I  hope  it  is  the  playful  friendliness  of 
No.  i. 

Anyway  in  English  use  it  was  at  first  confined  to  the 
Asphodel,  then  confused  with  the  Narcissus,  some  think 
through  both  plants  once  bearing  the  fanciful  name  Laus 
tibi,  but  I  would  rather  try  to  believe  it  was  from  a  desire 
to  find  some  wild  English  equivalent  for  the  Asphodel,1  and 
what  would  give  us  as  flowery  a  mead  as  the  wild  Lent-lily  ? 
Both  Turner  and  Lyte  testify  to  this  confusion.  Turner 
speaks  of  "  Asphodillus  ...  in  English  whyte  affodil  or 
duche  daffodil."  Lyte  writes  of  his  third  kind  of  Asphodel 
"  in  English  also  Affodyl  and  Daffodyl."  Botanists,  after 
unsuccessfully  resisting  this  mis-application,  compromised 
the  matter  by  retaining  affodil  ivi  the  Asphodel,  and  accept- 
ing the  more  popular  daffodil  for  the  Narcissus,  which  has 
lived  on  as  a  familiar  word,  while  the  other  has  been 
rectified  to  a  form  nearer  its  classic  original.  That 
Daffodil  is  Affo  dyle,  "  that  which  cometh  early  "  has  been 
confidently  asserted  by  some  (see  Sowerby's  English  Botany 

1  Turner,  Herbal,  I.  b.  iii.  6,  supports  this  :  "  I  could  never  se  thys  herb 
(asphodelos— ryght  affodil)  in  England  but  ones,  for  the  herbe  that  the  people 
calleth  here  affodil  (or  daffodill)  is  a  kind  of  narcissus." 
120 


Anemone  sylvestris  grandiflora.     (See  p.  218.) 


Daffodils 

for  an  instance),  but  is  ignored  by  the  Oxford  Dictionary, 
and  as  I  have  found  no  evidence  for  it  beyond  bare  asser- 
tions, this  time  I  thankfully  avail  myself  of  the  authority 
of  the  great  work.  Again,  that  Saffron-lily  has  given  us 
Daffadowndilly,  and  thence  Daffodil,  is  argued  by  Dr.  Prior, 
but  he  confesses  the  explanation  is  merely  conjectural,  and 
wants  the  test  of  historical  evidence.  It  is  a  modern  idea, 
though,  that  a  Daffodil  must  be  yellow,  for  both  Parkinson 
and  Gerard  speak  freely  of  white  Daffodils,  in  describing 
N.  poeticus,  both  double  and  single,  and  also  for  polyanthus 
varieties,  so  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  talk  of 
Poet's  Daffodils  instead  of  using  the  Latin  name  Narcissus 
for  that  group — or  we  might  revive  Gerard's  name  Narcisse 
for  them,  and  Parkinson's  name  Peerless  Daffodil  seems 
to  me  a  charming  one  for  the  Incomparabilis  section, 
better  than  the  contemporary  ones  "  nonpareille,"  "  none- 
such," and  "  incomparable,"  and  the  hideous  modern  nick- 
name of "  incomps  "  one  often  hears  from  the  lips  of  Daffodil 
growers.  Then  the  scientific  name  Narcissus  might  be 
reserved  for  botanical  purposes,  when  the  species  or  their 
wild  hybrids  and  varieties  are  referred  to. 

Do  not  expect  me  to  write  of  the  Daffodils  of  this 
garden  as  an  expert.  I  sit  among  the  great  of  the 
Daffodil  world,  and  see  their  latest  productions,  but  the 
garden  knows  them  not.  Birds  must  be  of  a  feather  to 
flock  together,  and  Croesus  and  White  Emperor  consort  not 
with  paupers.  So  I  have  no  list  of  latent  novelties  to  make 
your  mouths  water,  only  some  few  that,  though  neither 
new  nor  worth  double  figures  in  pounds,  yet  are  beautiful 
enough  to  be  worthy  of  a  sentence  or  two.  Many  are 
mementoes  of  kind  friends  and  their  richly-stored  gardens. 

121 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

I  shall  begin  with  my  greatest  favourite,  Dawn,  a  very 
appropriate  name  for  a  first  comer.  I  need  hardly 
describe  so  well-known  and  much-shown  a  flower,  but 
must  rejoice  in  some  of  its  good  points.  It  has  a  butterfly 
expression  in  the  reflexed  white  perianth  and  the  graceful 
way  the  segments  stand  out  at  rather  variant  angles, 
especially  where  the  twin  flowers  of  each  stem  touch 
each  other,  and  push  the  segments  forward,  and  cause 
their  tips  to  bend  over.  The  slender  stem  and  pendant 
twin  flowers  make  it  charming  as  a  cut  flower,  and  the 
flat,  yellow  cup  is  of  such  a  pure  colour  that  it  sets  off  the 
white  perianth  to  perfection.  I  have  hitherto  grown  it 
in  the  peach-house  border,  a  warm  and  sheltered  home 
reserved  for  new  and  precious  plants  until  they  increase 
enough  to  send  out  their  offspring  to  test  their  powers  of 
endurance  in  less  secure  quarters.  It  is  a  long,  narrow  bed 
facing  due  south,  backed  by  the  peach-house  and  its  low 
wall,  with  water-pipes,  heated  in  Spring,  just  behind  it.  It 
has  been  a  successful  nursery  for  many  a  good  thing,  when 
not  only  protection  from  chills,  but  also  constant  watching 
is  advisable.  I  believe  many  a  treasure  has  done  better 
here,  because  the  border  is  so  narrow,  and  the  delicate 
things  are  so  easily  got  at  to  be  fingered,  or  have  their 
surrounding  soil  pressed  down  or  scratched  up,  or  some 
other  slight  attentions  paid  to  them,  which  sometimes  make 
all  the  difference  to  a  plant  while  still  half-hearted  about 
living  and  growing,  much  as  those  of  a  watchful  and  tactful 
nurse  can  help  an  invalid  to  recovery.  Next  Spring  I 
hope  to  see  Dawn  out  of  this  nursery,  or  nursing  home, 
and  waving  its  butterflies  in  the  rock  garden.  I  have  not 
outgrown  my  admiration  of  Weardale  Perfection.  There 
122 


Daffodils 

may  be  more  beautiful  bicolors  for  millionaires,  but  they 
have  not  come  my  way  yet.  Lord  Muncaster  was  taking 
a  proud  place  in  lists  quite  lately  at  six  guineas  each,  and  I 
felt  much  inclined  to  sell  all  mine  but  one,  and  lay  out  the 
result  in  Weardales,  but  I  have  never  yet  sold  a  plant,  and 
I  hope  I  am  too  old  to  begin.  So  his  lordship  is  still  here. 

I  will  try  to  tell  you  what  charms  I  find  in  Weardale. 
It  is  quite  large  enough  for  me.  I  do  not  want  to  sit 
under  a  trumpet  during  a  shower.  Beyond  a  certain  point, 
size  nearly  always  means  coarseness,  and  I  greatly  dislike 
the  huge  race  of  trumpet  Daffodils  so  much  to  the  fore  in 
some  Dutch  gardens.  A  small  man  might  almost  feel 
nervous  of  looking  down  some  of  their  trumpets,  for  fear 
of  falling  in  and  getting  drowned  in  the  honey,  and  a  life- 
belt or  two  should  be  hung  among  the  beds.  As  we  have 
not  yet  come  to  viewing  our  gardens  from  aeroplanes,  we 
can  do  without  Rafflesia  Arnoldii  in  the  rock  garden,  and 
the  Waterbutt  Trumpet  Daffodil  for  mixed'  borders.  Even 
the  loveliest  of  fair  damsels,  magnified  to  the  size  of  two 
and  a  half  elephants,  would  be  an  appalling  object  to  the 
stock-sized  suitor,  and  until  I  have  to  take  to  much 
stronger  spectacles,  Weardale  is  large  enough  for  me. 

I  like  its  proportions  :  the  trumpet  has  not  ceased  to 
be  a  trumpet  and  become  instead  a  gramophone's  mouth- 
piece, but  the  wide,  overlapping  perianth  segments  make 
the  balance  more  perfect  than  would  be  the  case  were  the 
segments  of  a  narrower  type  such  as  in  the  variety  Duke 
of  Bedford.  But  I  lay  most  stress  on  the  colouring, 
and  the  soft  blending  of  its  two  main  shades  that  is 
so  delightful  to  look  at  or  imitate  in  paint.  The  base 
of  the  trumpet  pales  a  little  at  its  base,  and  also  picks  up 
123 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

some  reflected  light  from  the  perianth,  so  that  its  high 
lights  are  almost  of  the  same  tone  as  the  main  ground- 
colour of  the  segments,  and  the  soft  lemon-yellow  of  the 
trumpet  runs  out  a  little  at  the  base  of  each  segment, 
preventing  any  sudden  break  of  colour,  and  I  always 
marvel  at  the  amount  of  pearly  grey  in  its  shadows, 
especially  in  the  channelling  at  the  sides  of  the  broad 
central  beam  of  each  segment.  This  beam  when  present 
in  a  Daffodil  adds  greatly  to  my  delight.  It  strengthens 
the  lines  of  the  drawing  so  well,  and  generally  proclaims 
a  firm  substance  and  good  lasting  quality  in  the  flower. 
I  do  not  despise  Duke  of  Bedford.  It  is  a  fine  flower 
both  in  the  border  and  cut,  but  for  lingering  over,  painting, 
or  dining  in  front  of,  I  prefer  the  softer  blending  of  lemon 
and  cream  of  Weardale  to  the  amber  and  milk  of  his 
grace,  but  both  are  lovely  flowers,  and  fortunately  they 
may  be  bought  for  shillings. 

For  a  self-yellow  trumpet,  if  there  really  is  such  a 
thing,  or  near  enough  to  be  called  one  if  there  is  not, 
Hamlet  has  proved  sturdy  and  generous  with  its  soft, canary- 
coloured  blossoms,  and  is  one  of  the  earlier  flowerers  ;  as 
a  late  one  I  can  recommend  The  Doctor,  a  tall,  clear  yellow 
^Esculapius  with  a  hearty,  breezy  look  that  must  mean  a 
cheery  bedside  manner.  All  of  which  good  qualities,  save 
the  colour,  are  typical  of  the  popular  physician  for  whom, 
as  Americans  say,  it  was  named,  and  who  I  believe  is  now 
growing  Daffodils  as  well  as  he  does  Sweet  Peas.  This 
flower,  The  Doctor,  is  very  welcome  in  the  garden,  in  sick- 
ness or  health,  as  he  comes  when  other  big  trumpets  have 
given  us  up  (this  season  he  was  at  his  best  about  the 
2oth  of  April),  and  there  is  a  charm  about  the  long,  narrow 
124 


Daffodils 

perianth  segments  and  the  fascinating  backward  curve  they 
take  when  fully  blown,  which  added  to  the  King  Alfred  type 
of  colouring  urges  one  to  send  for  this  Doctor.  Monarch 
I  like  and  I  give  him  a  little  square  kingdom  of  border. 
Golden  Bell  is  very  effective  for  an  irregular  planting  ;  my 
best  group  is  among  some  species  of  Rosa,  but  I  think  its 
wide-mouthed  bell  too  heavy  for  cutting.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  can  never  quite  forgive  the  long-nosed,  drainpipe 
effect  of  Mme.  Plemp's  trumpet,  and  even  Dorothy  Kings- 
mill's  lovely  colouring  is  marred  by  the  narrow  mouth,  and 
I  feel  as  if  the  glove-stretchers  should  be  applied  gently  at  an 
early  stage.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Pyrenean  wildling 
N.  muticus  the  use  of  Nature's  scissors  has  balanced  the 
flower,  and  I  like  the  stiff,  straight  trumpet.  One  of  my 
greatest  treasures  (I  feel  tempted  to  write  "  so  far "  as  a 
recurring  decimal  to  guard  it  from  ill  for  aeons)  is  the  white 
muticus.  It  has  been  found  more  than  once  in  Pyrenean 
pastures,  but  so  far  as  I  know  the  only  stock  in  cultivation 
came  from  a  single  bulb  found  by  Mr.  Charles  Digby,  the 
Rector  of  Warham.  It  increased  slowly  with  him,  but  his 
generous  spirit  led  him  to  give  away  a  bulb  or  two  when 
offsets  appeared,  but  nowhere  have  they  proved  very 
vigorous,  and  many  have  died  out.  A  promising  youngster 
came  to  me  from  Warham,  and  a  happy  inspiration  caused 
me  to  plant  it  on  a  northern  slope  of  the  rock  garden.  The 
cool  conditions  and  good  drainage  have  suited  it  so  far;  and 
I  had  seven  of  its  lovely  white  blossoms  this  Spring,  and 
learning  of  its  total  disappearance  at  Warham  had  the 
great  pleasure  of  returning  three  bulbs  to  its  kind  dis- 
coverer. White  Minor  is  another  of  the  very  elect  of  the 
earth  :  it  was  found  in  an  old  Irish  garden,  and  has  not  gone 
125 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

far  afield  yet,  but  arrived  here  last  autumn,  a  token  of  the 
kindly  heart  and  good  memory  of  Mr.  Bennett  Poe,  who 
recalled  my  raptures  over  its  refined  beauty  when  I  saw  a 
bunch  of  it  in  his  drawing-room  at  one  of  those  delightful 
gatherings  for  a  cup  of  tea  after  a  long  R.H.S.  day,  alas  I 
too  seldom  possible  for  me,  who  throughout  the  Spring  have 
ever  a  train  to  catch  to  be  in  my  place  at  a  night  school 
that  has  grown  to  be  part  of  my  existence.  Even  among 
the  choicest  orchids  and  rare  exotics  from  his  collection  of 
rare  and  lovely  plants  that  always  fill  his  vases,  and  make 
one  feel  the  R.H.S.  Hall  ought  to  have  a  subterranean 
passage  ending  in  a  door  into  that  room,  to  let  Fellows  see 
what  cut  flowers  for  decoration  of  a  room  should  be  like — 
even  in  such  company,  White  Minor  held  its  own  as  a  gem. 
I  was  a  prisoner  in  a  sick-room  when  it  flowered  this  year, 
but  it  came  to  my  bedside  and  filled  me  with  pride  and 
gratitude  and  hope  for  next  season.  It  is  just  the  plant 
for  a  choice  corner  of  the  rock  garden,  a  fitting  companion 
for  N,  triandrus,  cyclamineus,  minimus,  and  their  hybrid  off- 
spring minicycla,  an  early  flowering,  long-lasting  darling, 
with  the  charm  of  both  parents.  Minimus  is  not  so  pro- 
lific here  as  I  wish  :  it  once  seeded  along  a  path  edge,  and 
I  hoped  would  go  on  doing  so,  but  no  further  strays  have 
appeared.  N.  juncifolius  is  rather  a  late  flowerer,  but  very 
charming  even  though  the  rock  garden  is  by  then  full  of 
flower,  and  all  the  Hoop  Petticoats  in  the  world  may  come 
to  me  if  they  like  and  I  will  try  to  find  room  for  them.  I 
once  collected  bulbs  of  citrinus  near  Biarritz,  and  by  getting 
my  feet  wet  in  their  boggy  home  caught  a  bad  cold,  but 
learnt  a  valuable  lesson  as  to  the  right  position  for  this 
thirsty  soul.  This  year  I  flowered  and  have  seeded  the 
126 


Daffodils 

true  N.  dubius,  kindly  sent  me  from  its  wild  home  by  M. 
Denis  of  Iris  fame.  It  is  very  small,  but  such  a  perfectly 
formed  little  flower,  and  so  white  that  one  longs  to  give  a 
doll's  dinner-party  to  decorate  the  table  with  it.  It  loves  heat 
and  drought,  so  I  am  hoping  it  will  thrive  here,  and  some 
bulbs  I  keep  in  the  Crocus  frame  have  been  lifted  and  re- 
planted, and  I  found  they  had  increased  in  size.  I  like  any 
wild  Narcissus  in  the  rock  garden,  and  some  of  the  distinct 
hybrids,  such  as  Dawn,  Moonbeam,  and  other  triandrus 
crosses,  but  the  beds  and  shrubberies  are  the  homes  for 
most  Daffodils.  I  have  tried  to  group  some  of  the  cool- 
coloured  ones  in  the  centre  of  the  piece  of  ground  I  have 
alluded  to  as  my  sole  bit  of  colour  scheming.  This  grouping 
contains  Poets  such  as  Rhymester,  Almira,  Cassandra  and 
Lovelace,  a  few  Leedsii  varieties,  White  Lady  and  Ariadne 
among  them,  and  nothing  more  yellow  than  Argent,  Alba- 
tross, and  Seagull,  and  coming  between  a  mass  of  grey-leaved 
things  and  golden-leaved  forms,  with  silver  variegations 
among  the  daffodils,  and  the  whole  backed  by  purple  foliage, 
the  early  Spring  effect  is  delightfully  clear  and  cool.  White 
Lady  is  fine  for  this  use,  being  far  enough  in  the  middle  of 
the  bed  for  the  cup  to  pass  unnoticed.  I  quarrel  with  her 
name  on  account  of  that  cup,  for  no  lady  would  go  out  with 
so  clean  and  fresh  a  white  skirt  over  such  a  bedraggled 
petticoat — worse  than  bedraggled,  it  is  a  lace-edged  one,  but 
with  the  lace  frayed  and  torn  and  wanting  mending.  The 
distant  effect  may  be  a  white  lady,  but  close  at  hand  the 
rags  spell  white  slut.  Argent  I  could  never  over-praise 
either  for  the  border  or  as  a  cut  flower,  whatever  rich  and 
rare  adjectives  I  might  bestow  upon  it :  the  mingling  of  its 
silver  and  gold  is  charming.  I  have  thoroughly  enjoyed 
127 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

trying  to  paint  it,  and  though  failing  to  express  the  brilliancy 
of  the  reflected  gold  of  the  scattered  sections  of  its  cup  on 
the  glistening  silvery  perianth,  yet  my  dull  daub  brings  back 
some  reminiscence  of  the  real  thing.  I  think  it  the  very 
best  of  all  double  Daffodils,  as  it  has  gained  in  contrasting 
light  and  shade  by  its  repeated  sections  of  cups,  and  is  not 
a  bit  heavy,  owing  to  the  length  and  scattered  position  of 
the  perianth  segments. 

Plenipo  I  like,  but  not  nearly  so  much,  as  the  perianth 
is  of  too  deep  a  yellow  to  make  the  contrast  so  pleasing. 

I  could  fill  many  pages  with  prattle  of  my  newer,  choicer 
treasures,  the  ordinary  garden  furnishing  of  other  folks' 
beds  most  probably,  so  I  will  only  say  that  they  live  in 
what  we  call  the  Pergola  garden,  where  some  paved  paths 
divide  it  into  rectangular  beds, and  oneof  our  later  additions, 
the  New  Wall,  cuts  off  the  east  wind,  so  that  there  is  found 
a  sheltered  home  for  good  little  daffs,  and  one  can  get  at 
them  easily  to  admire  their  beauty  or  fuss  over  their  needs. 
Lemon  Queen,  White  Queen,  Solfatare,  Lord  Kitchener, 
Great  Warley,  Outpost,  Incognita,  and  May  Moon  are  some 
of  this  pampered  company,  and  the  end  of  one  bed  is  filled 
with  a  double  row  of  a  fine  giant  Leedsii  of  Dutch  origin, 
named  H.  C.  Bowles  after  my  father.  At  first  we  thought 
it  rather  shy  flowering,  and  I  was  a  little  disappointed  at 
its  likeness  to  an  enlarged  White  Queen,  only  with  a  less 
symmetrical  base  to  the  cup.  But  it  has  certainly  improved 
since  it  became  a  British  subject,  and  has  shown  a  remark- 
able vigour  of  growth  and  freedom  of  flowering,  and  has 
a  great  deal  of  substance  in  it,  so  that  as  a  cut  bloom  it 
lasts  a  long  time,  and  the  pale  sulphur  of  its  cup  gradually 
tones  down  with  age  to  a  most  delicate  ivory  white.  White 
128 


Iris  longipetala  :  a  fine  Apogon  Iris 


Daffodils 

Queen  is  not  to  be  despised,  but  she  must  play  second  fiddle 
when  this  anglicised  Dutchman  tunes  up  and  plays  his  best. 

Another  naturalised  Mynheer  is  Whitewell.  I  have 
always  admired  it  since  the  day  I  first  saw  it  among  its 
sisters  and  its  cousins  and  its  aunts,  more  numerous  than 
those  of  that  First  Lord  who  could  be  reckoned  by  dozens, 
Whitewell's  went  into  hundreds,  and  yet  among  them  all 
this  fine  cream  and  soft  buff-orange  thing  kept  on  catching 
my  eye.  I  was  in  Holland,  and  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life  in  that  part  of  the  country  which  is  the  real  Holland 
for  a  flower-lover.  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  there 
with  Mr.  Joseph  Jacob,  and  therefore  under  his  wing,  and 
for  his  sake  found  a  kindly  welcome  in  many  a  quiet,  out- 
of-the-world  nook  where  the  making  of  new  garden  plants 
was  going  on.  Pleasant  as  are  my  memories  of  those 
sunny  or  showery  April  days,  none  please  me  more  than 
the  mornings  in  Mr.  Polman  Moy's  holy  of  holies,  where 
the  pick  of  his  last  season  or  two's  seedlings  are  gathered 
together  under  mystic  numbers.  Mr.  Jacob  was  choosing 
some  of  these  to  go  to  England  to  keep  up  the  reputation 
of  Whitewell  Rectory  for  the  good  things  that  are  always 
to  be  seen  in  Spring  in  the  long,  straight  beds  of  his  garden. 

He  was  good  enough  to  pretend  he  valued  my  advice 
in  this  selection,  and  extol  as  he  might  the  charms  of  others, 
I  always  declared  I  preferred  this  X  over  a  thing  like  a 
fish's  tail,  No.  1234,  and  so  many  notches,  or  whatever 
other  hieroglyphics  then  guarded  the  identity  of  the  future 
Whitewell.  I  loved  the  set  of  its  perianth,  three  ears  for- 
ward and  three  back.  Not  show  form,  perhaps,  but  so 
good  to  look  at,  and  the  forwards  casting  such  delicious 
shadows  on  the  backwards  in  the  sunlight. 

129  I 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

My  constancy  and  a  close  comparison  with  other  attrac- 
tive stocks  gradually  eliminated  its  rivals,  and  one  morn- 
ing when  we  met  at  breakfast  I  heard  the  news  that  an 
early  visit  to  the  bulb  garden  had  ended  in  the  arrangement 
that  the  stock  of  my  favourite  was  to  go  to  the  Rectory  in 
Wales.  I  am  glad  to  say  Whitewell  made  a  successful 
debut  on  the  show  stand  and  was  eagerly  sought  after, 
and  its  purchaser  often  tells  me  he  is  glad  he  was  overruled 
by  the  fascination  the  flower  had  for  me.  My  plants  of  it 
were  a  gift  from  him,  and  every  Spring  they  recall  pleasant 
memories  of  my  first  visit  to  Haarlem  and  its  bulb  gardens. 
Hall  Caine  I  first  saw  during  that  same  visit,  and  was  much 
struck  by  its  beauty.  A  large,  loosely-built,  sulphur-tinted 
Peerless  (I  mean  to  live  up  to  my  views  and  use  this  name), 
it  seemed  just  the  thing  for  cutting  as  well  as  for  a  good 
effect  in  a  broad  planting.  The  veteran  grower  who  was 
showing  us  his  stocks  declared  it  to  be  "just  incomparabilis," 
and  quoted  what  we  thought  a  ridiculously  low  figure 
for  it,  and  we  made  vows  to  invest  largely  in  this  "just 
incomparabilis,"  but  alas  !  at  the  office  we  learnt  it  was  an 
unnamed  seedling,  and  thought  too  much  of  to  be  acquired 
as  easily  as  we  were  expecting.  Now  it  has  a  name,  and 
though  it  is  a  very  charming  thing  its  price  is  not  prohibi- 
tive. It  is  soft  and  uncommon  in  colour,  and  with  a  fine 
tall  stem  and  graceful  poise,  and  is  none  too  well  known. 

The  celebrated  white  trumpet  Peter  Barr  is  among  my 
choice  and  petted  forms  in  the  bed  under  the  new  wall. 
I  wish  he  were  a  trifle  taller  in  the  stem  and  knew  how  to 
make  more  of  his  beauty.  He  came  to  me  by  means  of  ex- 
change. I  did  not  give  fifty  guineas  for  him — fifty  shillings 
would  be  more  than  I  should  dream  of  giving  for  any  one 
130 


Daffodils 

bulb — and  I  often  wish  Mr.  Pope  had  never  set  the  big 
price  ball  a-rolling  by  paying  down  ^100  for  those  three 
bulbs  of  Will  Scarlett. 

I  was  one  day  asked  what  I  thought  the  most  beautiful 
novelty  of  the  Daffodil  shows  of  the  year,  and  with  happy 
unconsciousness  replied  without  hesitation,  "  Lavender, 
which  I  saw  at  Birmingham."  "  How  nice  of  you,"  came  the 
reply ;  "  it  is  one  of  my  raising,  and  as  you  like  it  you  shall 
have  a  bulb,"  and  in  his  characteristically  generous  way 
my  host  led  me  to  a  newly-planted  line  and  extracted  the 
treasure  just  beginning  to  root,  and  each  succeeding  Spring 
I  have  revelled  in  the  delicate  colouring  of  that  cup.  The 
poor  dear's  perianth  is  not  a  thing  to  boast  of,  buckling  and 
curling  unless  treated  in  some  cunning  way  unknown  to 
a  simple  soul  who,  like  me,  is  not  up  to  the  tricks  of  the 
showing  profession,  but  the  cup  would  save  it  even  if 
the  perianth  were  made  of  spiders'  legs.  It  is  more  like 
some  enamelled  jewel  than  a  flower.  The  central  hollow 
is  of  a  soft  emerald  green  of  solid  opaque  enamel,  then 
the  flattish  cup  glistens  all  over  and  shows  radiating  lines 
of  brightness  and  has  an  almost  indescribable  touch  of  pink 
in  it.  (In  painting  it  I  found  a  wash  of  Rose  madder 
needful  tmt  difficult  to  subdue.)  I  think  it  suggests  a 
transparent  white  enamel  laid  over  engraved  copper,  or 
gold  heavily  alloyed  with  copper.  Then  the  rim  of  the 
cup  is  stained  with  soft  orange,  of  almost  a  salmon  shade, 
and  exquisite  in  combination  with  the  green  of  the  eye. 
This  lovely  beauty  must  never  be  stared  at  by  the  sun,  but 
should  be  gathered  directly  the  bud  bursts  and  brought 
into  the  house  to  open,  and  I  am  rather  glad  to  feel  that  some 
flowers  are  best  gathered,  and  enjoy  a  vase  of  Lavender 
131 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

all  the  more  for  the  knowledge  that  out-of-doors  it  would 
not  look  so  happy. 

Writing  of  gathering  leads  me  to  the  final  aspect  of 
Daffodil-growing  that  I  must  dwell  upon.  I  grudge  pick- 
ing blossoms  so  much  from  even  well-flowered  groups, 
that  we  have  planted  some  lines  of  useful  cutting  varieties 
in  the  spaces  between  the  currant  and  gooseberry  bushes, 
not  needing  that  space  for  the  crop  nurses  told  us  in  our 
early  days  emanated  from  that  special  bit  of  ground.  The 
daffodils  get  a  bit  of  protection  there  and  grow  stiff  and  tall, 
and  are  out  of  the  way  before  fruit-picking  begins.  What 
have  we  put  there  ?  Let  me  see  now — Sir  Watkin  of 
course,  a  fine  healthy  lot  of  bulbs  of  giant  proportions  from 
a  certain  Dutch  field  of  many  acres  I  once  crossed  with 
Sir  Watkin  up  to  my  knees.  I  never  saw  such  a  sight,  and 
vowed  I  must  test  their  vigour  here.  In  this  their  first 
year  they  have  surprised  all  who  had  not  seen  them  at 
Noordwyk  ;  and  now  comes  the  question,  Will  they  be  able 
to  do  so  again  ?  Queen  Bess  is  another  indispensable  as  she 
is  so  early.  Hall  Caine,  whose  praises  I  have  already  sung 
Mrs.  Camm,  as  she  is  one  of  the  most  useful,  a  delightful 
size  for  old  and  tall  champagne  glasses,  delicate  in  colour 
and  lasting  well.  Mr.  Camm  is  there,  too,  but  not  so  much 
approved  of.  Seagull,  Albatross,  several  Poets,  and  a  long 
line  of  mixed  Dutch  seedlings  are  those  that  come  to  my 
mind  as  most  successful.  Some  beds  of  Tea  Roses  are 
planted  pretty  thickly  with  Barrii  conspicuus,  the  Camms, 
and  Golden  Mary,  and  provide  many  a  good  bunch,  while 
I  hope  and  believe  the  Daffodil  leaves  protect  the  Rose 
shoots.  It  is  good  to  see  that  Barrii  conspicuus  is  still  in 
favour  even  with  experts,  for  in  the  voting  list  returns  as 
132 


Daffodils 

shown  in  the  R.H.S.  Daffodil  Year  Book,  it  heads  the  list 
of  cut  flowers  from  the  open,  those  suitable  for  planting  in 
grass,  and  also  of  the  yellow-perianthed  Barn't,  and  is  well 
up  in  lists  for  other  purposes.  William  Backhouse  must 
have  been  a  happy  and  proud  man  when  he  first  saw  it  in 
his  seed-bed.  I  have  a  great  affection  for  its  white  peri- 
anthed  sport  Branston,  and  am  amused  rather  than  an- 
noyed when  some  of  the  flowers  come  half  and  half,  and 
look  like  cream  poured  on  custard. 


133 


CHAPTER   VIII 
Primulas 

I  USED  to  think  this  garden  was  unsuitable  for  Primulas 
other  than  the  commonest  forms  of  Primroses,  but 
patience  and  a  certain  amount  of  manoeuvring  have  some- 
what increased  the  possibilities,  though  still  an  extra  hot 
and  dry  year  like  1911  frizzles  up  the  double  garden 
varieties  and  parches  P.  rosea  beyond  recovery.  The 
earliest  to  flower  is  P.  megasiaefolia,  or  perhaps  I  should  say 
to  try  to  flower,  for  from  December  onward  this  foolishly 
precocious  plant  gets  a  flower-bud  irretrievably  damaged 
about  once  a  fortnight,  and  seldom  succeeds  in  opening 
one.  P.  cashmireana  often  shoots  up  a  mushroom-shaped 
mass  of  buds  in  January  only  to  be  blackened  and  end  in 
decay,  but  P.  marginata  manages  better  and,  by  keeping 
close  under  its  leaves  at  first,  opens  the  earliest  of  its 
flowers  with  the  Hepaticas.  It  is  such  a  good-tempered 
and  lovely  thing,  both  in  flower  and  leaf,  I  wonder  one 
does  not  see  it  oftener.  In  a  real  Primrose-beloved 
garden  it  should  be  possible  to  have  edgings  of  it,  and  how 
lovely  they  would  be.  Here  I  have  to  find  a  cool  corner 
with  stones  to  keep  its  roots  moist  to  make  it  happy,  and 
some  clumps  in  the  rock  garden  reward  my  care  with  a 
fine  show  of  flowers  :  one  is  a  particularly  blue  form,  and 
having  deeply-toothed  leaves  is  good  to  look  at  all  its  days — 
134 


Primulas 

pays  rent  all  the  year  in  fact.  I  have  a  rather  interesting 
set  of  named  forms  with  widely-differing  shapes  of  leaves 
and  the  much-praised  garden  form  Mrs.  Hall  Walker, 
whose  flowers  I  have  not  seen  yet,  but  have  great  hopes  of 
them  next  season  founded  upon  the  present  fatness  of  the 
central  crown.  I  spent  a  very  happy  day  up  in  the 
Cottian  Alps  this  last  June  collecting  some  lovely  forms, 
and  hope  to  make  a  good  planting  as  soon  as  I  can  get 
them  out  of  the  sand  frame  where  they  are  making  their 
new  roots  after  being  pulled  to  bits. 

I  once  thought  I  did  not  greatlycare  for  Alpine  Primulas, 
they  seemed  to  me  so  much  given  to  thin  magenta  colour- 
ing, but  a  few  weeks  among  them  in  Tyrol,  with  Mr. 
Farrer  as  interpreter  of  their  charms,  converted  me,  and 
he  likes  to  remind  me  of  my  declaration  that  I  should  not 
collect  more  than  two  or  three  of  each  and  the  contra- 
dictory reality  of  the  full  tins  I  carried  on  my  poor  old 
back  down  those  mountain  sides.  A  few  of  the  purple, 
almost  blue,  bells  of  P.  glutinosa  on  the  Venna  Thai  en- 
lightened me,  and  a  mountain  side  rosy-purple  for  a  mile 
or  more  with  P.  spectabilis  in  full  bloom,  as  a  Scotch  hill- 
side might  be  with  heather,  finished  the  work.  But  then 
both  in  their  native  hills  are  revelations  of  what  Primulas 
can  be.  Picking  out  the  largest  white-eyed  forms  of  spec- 
tabilis and  selecting  the  most  rosy  and  least  aniline  I  found 
as  fascinating  as  any  bit  of  collecting  I  had  ever  done. 
Just  picture  to  yourself  a  turfy  mountain  side,  worn  by 
weather  and  sheep,  or  goats,  into  countless  horizontal 
miniature  terraces  such  as  one  often  finds  in  a  steep  bit  of 
the  South  Downs,  and  under  the  brow  of  each  terrace 
fancy  clumps  of  a  dozen  to  twenty  rosettes  of  a  green- 
135 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

leaved  garden  Auricula  whose  large  heads  of  flowers  are  of 
every  shade  of  rose  and  crimson,  so  that  looking  up  the 
hill  you  get  the  full  stare  of  their  friendly  eyes  and  every 
one  you  look  at  seems  to  possess  some  varietal  charm  of 
its  own — a  clearer  white  eye,  a  warmer  rose  tint,  or  fuller 
and  rounder  flower.  Can  you  wonder  that  I  was  on  my 
knees  every  other  minute  plunging  my  trowel  into  the 
tufts  to  extract  half  a  dozen  of  the  rosettes  ?  Just  two  or 
three  of  the  best  indeed  !  that  tin  was  a  heavy  load  to 
carry  down,  and  there  was  much  work  sorting  and  packing 
my  chosen  few.  Just  the  same  when  I  found  myself  face 
to  face  with  it  in  another  district,  and  where,  meeting  with 
P.  minima,  there  were  interesting  hybrids,  exciting  to  look 
for  and  so  entrancingly  beautiful  when  found  that  I  dis- 
covered I  could  not  bear  to  live  without  P.  Facchinii  and 
P.  Dumoulinii.  P.  oenensis  had  to  follow,  and  longiflora  with 
its  charming,  mealy  stem  filled  my  gardening  soul  with 
greed  and  every  spare  corner  of  my  tin  with  its  neat 
rosettes,  and  eventually  the  boot-bag  I  carry  in  a  pocket 
in  case  of  overcrowding  had  to  come  out  and  hang  round 
my  neck  to  hold  that  mealy-leaved  golden  glory  P.  Auri- 
cula Bauhinii. 

A  few  days  later  Mr.  Farrer  took  me  to  another  ridge 
just  to  look  at  other  interesting  Primulas,  but  I  think  he 
had  long  ceased  to  believe  in  my  intention  of  just  gazing 
and  then  picking  out  a  trinity  of  mementoes  of  the  vision, 
so  he  was  not  surprised  that,  when  I  had  at  last  got  over 
staring  at  the  unbelievable,  fantastic  beauty  of  the  great 
Dolomite  peak  that  hung  over  our  heads,  I  fell  to  eagerly 
on  the  crevices  which  harboured  P.  tyrolensis  and  hunted 
the  open  turf  for  its  very  local  minima-bred  hybrid  P.Juri- 
136 


Primulas 

bella,  and  at  last  owned  myself  vanquished  by  the  beauty 
of  Alpine  Primulas  at  home,  when  I  saw  the  peaty  hillside 
blue  with  P.  glutinosa,  there  as  common  as  Cowslips  in  a 
home  meadow,  instead  of  dotted  singly  as  on  the  Brenner. 
Home  they  went  in  the  largest  tins  I  could  cajole  out  of 
reluctant  head  waiters,  and  how  will  they  behave  here  is 
now  the  burning  question.  On  arrival  they  were  all 
pulled  asunder,  and  as  separate  rosettes  planted  in  lines  in 
a  frame  in  almost  pure  sand  and  leaf  soil.  By  the  autumn 
they  Icoked  fat  and  leafy  above,  and  by  experimental  lift- 
ings were  proved  to  have  made  long,  white  roots  and  to 
be  ready  to  go  out.  An  overgrown  portion  of  the  rock 
garden,  hitherto  sacred  to  Geranium  species,  was  torn  down 
and  rebuilt  to  imitate  the  Tyrolean  homes  from  which  I 
had  exiled  my  Primulas.  I  had  to  leave  out  the  Cimon 
della  Parla  and  the  Drei  Zinnen,  but  hope  the  carefully- 
mixed  soils  I  have  given  them  will  make  them  so  happy 
that  they  will  not  look  up  and  miss  such  trifles. 

Peat  in  small  quantities,  leaf  mould  used  generously,  a 
stiffening  of  the  sourfl£  resulting  from  these  two  by  a  liberal 
dose  of  the  old  soil,  and  the  main  geological  formation  of 
this  miniature  range  was  ready  for  adaptation  to  the  special 
wants  of  its  flora.  Feeling  too  poor  to  invest  in  granite 
chips  or  even  birdcage  sand,  I  commandeered  a  load  of  our 
native  red  gravel,  well  screened,  from  the  estate  mason's 
storehouse  and  worked  it  into  my  too  sticky  compost  in 
varying  quantities.  The  lower  slopes,  reserved  for  P. 
minima,  longiflora,  and  glutinosa,  had  only  enough  to  make 
the  soil  feel  sharp  and  gritty,  but  vertical  crevices  prepared 
for  Auricula  and  tyrolensis  had  the  upper  two  or  three  inches 
well  reddened  with  the  gravel.  The  hybrids  had  a  middle 
137 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

position  of  intermediate  grittiness  and  spectabilis  has  gone 
to  the  upper  slopes.  How  magnificent  it  sounds  !  That 
is  the  fun  of  writing  of  one's  garden  :  a  steep  bank  can  be 
a  cliff,  a  puddle  a  pool,  a  pool  a  lake,  bog  and  moraine 
sound  as  though  a  guide  were  needed  to  find  your  way 
across  them,  and  yet  may  be  covered  by  a  sheet  of  The 
Times.  My  Dolomites  lie  within  the  compass  of  my  out- 
stretched arms,  and  there  is  not  much  wasted  space  now 
the  Primulas  are  settled  in.  So  far  they  have  thriven 
amazingly,  and  this  Spring,  when  the  curtain  rang  up,  the 
Auricula  forms  first  took  the  stage.  The  Bauhinii  troupe 
were  quite  as  fine  with  their  large  Daffodil-yellow,  white- 
eyed  flowers  on  stout  stems  as  on  their  own  hillside.  The 
ciliata  lot  with  their  deep  green  mealless  leaves  gave 
blossoms  as  nearly  orange  as  when  found  wild.  Oenensis 
took  the  next  turn,  and  pleased  me  more  here  than  when 
at  home  :  the  flowers  looked  less  aniline  in  colour  and  had 
such  pleasant  white  eyes,  but  perhaps  I  had  picked  out  the 
best  forms  only.  Longifloras  was  the  star  performance, 
however.  Before  going  to  rest  for  the  winter  they  formed 
fat  crowns  like  small  cabbages,  and  this  May  each  rosette 
sent  up  two  stems,  and  the  main  one  bore  twenty  or  more 
blossoms,  instead  of  the  half  dozen  or  so  I  had  found  them 
contepted  with  at  home.  I  had  never  seen  this  species 
alive  before  I  went  to  its  home  to  meet  it,  as  it  is 
apparently  seldom  grown  in  gardens,  and  in  spite  of  all 
this  appearance  of  vigour  I  cannot  help  feeling  there  must 
be  something  wrong  about  its  constitution  to  have  pre- 
vented its  sharing  cottage-garden  edgings  with  Thrift  and 
Daisies. 

So  I  have  saved  some  seeds  to  prepare  for  squalls,  and 
138 


Primulas 

I  noticed  that  where  the  rosettes  have  waxed  so  strong  they 
insist  on  sending  up  ridiculous,  dwarfed,  flower-crowded 
stems  at  intervals  all  the  summer  through,  and  doing 
nothing  towards  a  fat  cabbage  for  next  winter's  sleep. 
Several  have  gone  off  yellow,  as  its  near  relative  farinosa 
so  often  does  after  a  good  orgy  of  flowering,  and  I  rather 
expect  it  will  be  best  to  starve  longiflora  into  less  ambitious 
displays  or,  if  it  comes  easily  from  seed,  treat  it  as  a 
biennial.  If  it  can  be  so  grown  it  will  be  well  worth  the 
trouble :  the  mealy  calyx  and  reddish-purple  flowers — 
"reether  redder  than  I  could  wish  "  as  Bailey  Junior  said 
of  his  imaginary  beard — were  wonderfully  good  to  see 
when  at  their  best.  P.  glutinosa  lives  and  grows,  but,  as  I 
believe  to  be  only  too  usual  in  English  gardens,  has  offered 
no  trace  of  a  flower.  No  more  has  tyrolensis,  but  has  made 
such  deep  green  rosettes  and  wide  leaves  that  they  must 
surely  mean  a  promise  of  good  things  later  on.  Minima 
and  the  hybrids  looked  so  chubby  and  cheery  on  their 
return  to  greenness  I  expected  great  things  of  them,  but 
never  a  bud  appeared  until  I  had  given  up  looking  for 
them,  and  at  the  end  of  June  I  was  astonished  by  a  goodly 
sprinkling  of  rosy-purple  and  a  few  pure  white  blooms,  all 
as  large  and  well-coloured  as  when  I  selected  them.  But 
the  stupid  things  were  so  pleased  at  pleasing  me  they  have 
tried  to  go  on  with  it,  and  through  the  Dog  Days  have  kept 
on  sending  up  mean,  flabby,  starry  caricatures  of  their 
former  successes.  P.  spectabilis  opened  a  very  few  eyes, 
but  has  been  so  busy  working  up  a  stock  of  large  green 
leaves  that  it  had  no  time  for  such  frivolities  as  flowers 
this  season. 

P.  pedemontana  behaved  in  the  same  way  its  first  season 
139 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

in  the  pipe-bed,  and  made  up  for  it  by  a  charming  display 
this  May.  Its  ugly  duckling  hybrid  child  P.  Bowlesii  shot 
up  its  taller  scape  too.  It  is  ungrateful  of  me  to  speak 
slightingly  of  this  plant  after  its  dedication  to  me,  but  in 
case  you  are  thinking  of  rushing  off  to  Mt.  Cenis  to  hunt 
for  it  I  had  better  be  honest  and  say  it  is  very  scarce  :  a 
whole  morning  of  careful  search  this  June  rewarded  Mr. 
Farrer  and  me  with  three  plants  of  it,  and  between  us 
we  do  not  miss  much  when  we  hunt  for  a  thing  systema- 
tically. Also  it  is  fair  to  say  that  in  spite  of  its  lovely 
parents,  rosy  pedemontana  and  the  true  viscosa  of  imperial 
purple,  it  is  a  mawkish  magenta  in  all  the  specimens  we 
have  found  save  one,  which  was  a  cheery  crimson-purple, 
and  so  good  that  at  first  sight  I  thought  it  too  good  to  be 
true  Bowlesii.  I  wonder  how  this  name  will  be  pronounced 
should  it  be  tried  by  Poles  and  Russians,  Germans,  Turks 
or  Prooshians,  or  an  I-talian.  I  rather  fear  it  will  become 
Bovvleaysiee.  Anyway  I  was  glad  to  be  the  first  to  flower 
my  Primrose,  and  to  be  able  to  send  a  scape  and  leaves 
to  the  British  Museum,  though  it  was  not  in  time  to  appear 
at  the  Primula  Conference.  It  has  made  the  most  curious 
long  and  narrow  leaves  this  summer,  and  at  present  looks 
totally  unlike  either  parent. 

P.  frondosa  is  a  good  plant  for  the  sand  and  water-pipe 
moraine  even  in  fullest  sun,  and  never  looked  so  well  here 
with  other  treatment.  Whether  it  be  the  true  frondosa  of 
Janka  or  no,  has  been  much  debated,  and  at  present  it  is 
comforting  to  know  that  the  latest  authorities  pronounce  it 
genuine,  as  the  type  specimen  is  suspected  of  having  lost 
its  mealiness  through  maturity,  and  therefore  Pax  and 
Knuth's  upsetting  decree  that  it  must  be  without  meal 
140 


Primulas 

need  not  be  regarded.1  Where  farinosa  refuses  to  settle  and 
be  comfortable  frondosa  makes  a  fine  substitute,  though  it 
lacks  in  my  eyes  the  grace  of  our  native  plant,  and  is 
rather  too  leafy  and  clumsy  in  build.  The  new  Chinese 
P.  Knuthiana  is  a  still  larger  form  of  the  same  type  of 
Primrose,  but  after  flowering  appears  to  make  rosettes 
without  sufficient  roots,  and  so  is  liable  to  turn  flabby  and 
then  yellow  in  hot  weather,  and  seems  hard  to  restore  to 
health.  Old  plants  look  very  queer  here  now,  in  the  pipe- 
bed,  but  what  appear  to  be  self-sown  seedlings  are  racing 
along  to  fill  up  their  places. 

P.  Jtiliae,  the  new  comer  from  Trans-Caucasia,  has 
behaved  here  as  a  real  lady,  just  as  the  bearer  of  such  a 
name  should.  Two  tuffets  came  from  Herr  Siindermann 
early  in  the  year,  their  canary-coloured  labels  the  showiest 
part  of  them.  Cossetted  for  a  little  in  a  frame  and  then 
put  out  in  cool,  leafy  soil  they  flowered  brilliantly  in  late 
April.  The  astonishing  crimson-purple  of  their  flowers  is 
in  such  sharp  contrast  with  the  brilliant  yellow  eye  that  every 
one  exclaims  "  Oh  !  "  "  Marvellous  ! !  "  "  My  stars  ! ! ! " 
"  Crikey  ! ! ! !  "  or  something  else  according  to  the  richness 
of  their  vocabulary,  when  they  first  see  it.  Not  only  have 
they  developed  their  characteristic  runners  with  new  crowns 
at  their  ends,  but  when  I  parted  the  leaves  to  enjoy  a  sight 
of  these  promises  for  next  year  I  found  they  were  indulging 
in  a  little  quiet  practice  for  next  Spring's  flowering,  and  had 
several  half-sized  blossoms  hidden  away  below,  but  as 
brilliant  in  colouring  as  ever.  Of  the  two  I  possess,  the 
plant  in  fat  soil  in  a  half-shaded  border  has  done  better 

1  Since  writing  this  I  have  seen  a  plant  straight  from  its  native  Balkans  which 
is  as  mealy  as  any  miller. 


My  Garden  in   Spring 

than  the  other  in  the  poorer  soil  of  an  old  portion  of  the 
rock  garden,  and  it  looks  as  though  the  right  treatment 
for  it  is  the  same  that  one  would  give  to  the  choicer 
double  Primroses. 

They,  poor  dears,  are  not  very  happy  here,  except  in 
wet  seasons,  and  a  Spring  visit  to  Ireland  always  fills  me 
with  envy,  and  longings  for  a  climate  that  can  produce 
such  double  whites,  French  greys,  and  lilacs,  and  also 
clumps  of  Polyanthus  of  such  size,  and  flowers  of  such 
texture  and  colouring.  Short  of  digging  a  ditch  for  them 
I  fear  I  must  not  expect  to  see  them  thrive  here. 

In  this  neighbourhood  Cowslips  are  wild  in  some  of 
the  meadows,  but  Primroses  are  very  scarce,  only  occur- 
ring along  a  ditch  or  two,  and  possibly  not  truly  wild 
there.  Among  the  wild  Cowslips  in  one  of  our  meadows 
there  occurs  an  interesting  form  in  which  the  orange 
spots,  so  characteristic  of  the  plant,  are  wanting.  I  have 
brought  it  into  the  garden,  and  it  remains  perfectly  true, 
and  is  seeding  about  freely,  and  I  hope  to  soon  observe 
how  large  a  percentage  will  resemble  the  parents.  I 
always  look  at  Cowslips  in  other  places  to  see  if  they  too 
show  this  variation,  but  have  never  seen  it  elsewhere. 
Knuth  in  his  Handbook  of  Flower  Pollination  mentions 
that  "  Flowers  devoid  of  this  (orange-red)  patch  have 
been  observed  by  Kirchner  in  Wurtemberg  and  Appel 
(as  he  tells  me  in  a  letter)  at  Wiirzburg."  I  have  a 
great  affection  for  Cowslips,  and  so  grow  all  the  forms 
I  can  get  now,  and  long  for  the  curious  green  and 
double  ones  figured  in  the  old  herbals.  A  beautiful  orange- 
coloured  form  was  given  to  me  by  Mrs.  Robb,  who  told  me 
she  remembered  it  from  her  early  childhood,  but  had 
142 


Primulas 

lost  sight  of  it  for  many  years,  till,  staying  at  her  old 
home  Great  Tew,  one  of  the  children  came  to  say  good- 
night and  carried  a  bunch  of  Cowslips,  among  them  the 
orange  one.  "  Don't  take  that  dear  child  to  bed,  Nurse, 
until  she  has  found  the  plant  she  picked  these  from,  and 
put  in  a  stick  beside  it,"  said  this  imperious  old  lady,  and 
as  she  was  generally  obeyed  the  Cowslip  found  its  way  to 
her  charming  garden  at  Goldenfield  and  thence  to  me. 
"  Pick  out  the  best  you  can  see,"  she  bade  me  ;  "  they  won't 
all  come  true,  but  you  might  as  well  start  with  the  best 
form,"  and  I  greatly  treasure  this  memento  of  her  generosity 
and  happy  days  at  Goldenfield.  A  silver  Cowslip  of  palest 
yellow  Canon  Ellacombe  gave  me,  and  other  interesting 
forms  are  due  to  my  always  collecting  a  plant  or  two  from 
every  alpine  district  in  which  I  meet  with  it.  Most  of  them 
are  the  form  known  asColumnae,with  cordate  leaves  on  long 
petioles  and  flowers  approaching  P.  elatior.  On  Mt.  Cenis 
one  finds  every  sort  of  intermediate,  and  a  botanist  might 
spend  years  there  cataloguing  their  variations.  Elatior 
itself  has  overrun  a  portion  of  the  rock  garden,  but  is  so 
charming  it  may  keep  on  running  as  long  as  Charlies  Aunt. 
There  have  been  bold  men  who  declared  true  elatior 
never  hybridised,  but  Mr.  Wolley-Dod  gave  me  some  living 
proofs  that  such  statements  were  inaccurate,  for  these 
plants  have  elatior  form  but  the  colouring  of  various  red 
and  pink  Primroses,  and  I  myself  have  found  several  seed- 
lings with  flowers  bearing  traces  of  Primrose  characters. 
Pax  and  Knuth  give  no  less  than  two  pages  to  the  various 
hybrid  forms  due  to  its  liaisons  with  P.  acaulis  and  P. 
officinalis.  One  of  them,  P.  anisiaca,  has  been  praised  for 
its  floriferous  character  by  Mr.  Farrer,  and  he  kindly  gave 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

me  part  of  each  of  his  forms  of  it,  but  here  it  suffers  so 
from  thirst  in  summer  that  it  does  not  flower  through  the 
whole  Winter  and  Spring  as  with  him,  but  is  a  dwarf  and 
Interesting  form. 

I  am  very  fond  of  the  various  purple  or  lilac  forms 
of  Primrose  that  come  from  Turkey  and  the  Near  East. 
The  good  old  plant,  sold  so  unblushingly  as  P.  amoena — 
the  true  plant  belonging  to  that  name  not  being  in  culti- 
vation at  present — should  be  known  as  P.  acaulis,  var.  rubra, 
say  Pax  and  Knuth,  but  Dr.  MacWatt  has  raked  up  the 
name  of  Sibthorpei  Pax  for  it,  in  spite  of  the  great  man 
and  his  coadjutor  having  placed  it  as  a  synonym  in  their 
monograph.  It  is  the  single  form  of  the  old  double  lilac, 
and  in  its  best  forms  of  that  same  charming  cool  colour. 
I  have  also  a  deeper  form,  almost  a  purple — another  of 
Mrs.  Robb's  good  things.  She  saw  it  on  Mount  Olympus, 
and  much  to  the  annoyance  of  her  magnificent  dragoman, 
who  was  dressed  in  a  uniform  richer  in  gold  lace  than 
that  of  the  most  distinguished  general,  she  insisted  on 
his  dismounting  from  his  horse  and  digging  up  some  roots 
with  a  broken  potsherd,  the  only  weapon  that  offered 
itself.  She  told  me  its  purple  glory  always  reminded  her 
of  the  rueful  face  of  that  glittering  dragoman. 

These  forms  require,  at  any  rate  here,  frequent  divi- 
sion and  replanting  in  soil  freshened  by  leaf  mould  and  cow 
manure.  They  dwindle  if  left  alone  for  more  than  two 
years,  but  if  well  looked  after  are  very  charming  in  good 
broad  plantings.  P.  cortusoides  and  its  garden  descendants, 
who  have  not  descended  but  have  very  much  gone  up  in 
the  world  as  to  size,  appearance,  and  general  affluence, 
need  more  leaf  mould  and  choicer,  cool  corners  than  the 
144 


Iris  Susiana  :  A  typical  Oncocyclus  Iris 


Primulas 

garden  can  commonly  afford,  so  they  are  not  broadly 
planted,  and  only  to  be  found  in  a  few  nooks  of  the  rock 
garden,  where  the  white  and  lavender  forms  of  Sieboldii 
are  very  welcome  to  spread  if  they  will  do  it  on  their  own 
responsibility. 

P.  Veitchii  I  have  tried  to  like,  and  failed  to  do  more 
than  tolerate.  A  white  form  I  could  love,  but  the  type 
is  so  defiantly  aniline  in  its  choice  of  red  that  I  should 
neither  cry  nor  purchase  a  successor  should  it  die  of  my 
cold  neglect.  On  the  contrary  the  smaller-flowered, equally 
aniline,  Cortusa  Matthioli  has  a  firm  hold  on  my  affections, 
perhaps  grounded  in  the  memories  of  pleasant  mornings 
in  the  cool  gully,  where  among  fallen  boulders  and  a 
dwarf  forest  of  Alnus  viridis  I  first  saw  its  downy  leaves 
and  crimson  buds  planted  by  Nature's  own  hand.  It  is  a 
strange  place,  that  gully,  part  of  the  only  woodland  for 
miles  around,  on  the  shady  side  of  the  Mt.  Cenis  lake. 
You  must  mount  up  to  the  col  and  cross  into  France  and 
begin  to  descend  before  you  find  another  thicket  of  the 
Alder,  but  there  you  will  find  no  Cortusa,  for  on  the  Cenis 
it  is  wholly  confined  to  this  gully.  There  it  is  very  abun- 
dant under  the  straggling  stems  of  the  Alder,  growing  in 
rich  leaf  soil,  or  tufts  of  moss,  or  apparently  nothing  but 
rock  and  atmosphere,  but  always,  always  in  shade.  Snow 
lies  late  in  this  hollow,  and  must  be  very  deep  in  winter, 
for  the  Alders  are  flattened  under  it  as  though  a  steam 
roller  had  been  over  them,  and  what  looks  from  below 
like  a  slope  of  dwarf  bushes  is  the  most  difficult  thing  to 
climb  among  I  can  imagine  ;  the  long,  prostrate  stems  give 
under  your  feet,  catch  round  your  ankles,  and  whip  your 
legs,  and  the  upright  portions  are  no  good  to  catch  hold  of 
145  K 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

for  support,  as  they  join  on  to  the  long  and  supple  stems 
that  lie  on  the  ground,  but  do  not  root  again,  and  so  pull 
away  with  your  weight  and  sway  about,  and  are  less  help- 
ful than  a  broken  reed.  But  wherever  there  is  a  space 
among  their  stems,  Cortusa,  Soldanella  tnontana,  and  Saxifraga 
rotundifolia  fill  it  up.  I  had  often  purchased  Cortusa  and 
tried  it  in  various  positions  in  the  rock  garden,  and  always 
failed  to  make  it  happy  enough  to  live  the  round  of  a  year, 
but  some  of  those  I  brought  away  from  this  shady  grove 
have  thriven  and  increased  among  Hepaticas  and  Wood 
Anemones  in  a  border  shaded  by  Purple-leaved  Hazels. 

The  Spring  Primulas  wind  up  with  the  dumb-waiter- 
like  whorled  flower-heads  of  P.  japonica  and  its  family. 
Their  idea  of  luxury  is  mud,  and  it  suits  their  requirements 
as  well  as  those  of  a  cockle-gatherer.  The  margin  of  a 
pond  and  the  bottom  of  a  not  too  wet  ditch  provide  a 
happy  home  for  them,  and  failing  these  the  richer  and 
moister  soil  you  can  give  them,  the  better  will  be  the  result. 
There  are  some  good  colour  forms  of  japonica,  a  so-called 
salmon,  which  is  much  more  like  anchovy  sauce  if  one  must 
give  it  a  fishy  name,  a  pure  white  with  large  orange  eye, 
one  of  the  loveliest  of  Primroses,  and  a  very  deep  coppery 
red  one,  so  there  is  no  need  to  tolerate  the  old  magenta 
forms  and  still  less  the  speckled  and  ring-straked  abomina- 
tions that  a  bad  white  strain  produces  so  freely  among  its 
seedlings.  Even  P.  pulverulenta  is  crude  and  twangy  beside 
the  best  deep  japonica.  I  planted  some  seedlings  along  the 
pond  edge  and  grouped  pulverulenta  with  the  deep  red  and 
white  japonicas,  and  directly  I  had  done  so  was  sorry, 
believing  the  Chinese  pulverulenta  would  kill  the  colour  of 
the  Japanese.  When  they  flowered  it  was  the  Chinese  that 
146 


Primulas 

were  defeated,  and  had  to  be  removed  to  a  separate  canton- 
ment for  sake  of  peace  to  the  eye.  By  itself  the  Chinese, 
mealy-stemmed  fellow  is  not  bad,  and  among  wildish  grass 
on  the  edge  of  a  small  pool  at  the  bottom  of  the  rock  gar- 
den I  thought  its  crimson  tiers  quite  lovely  enough  to  leave 
them  to  seed  if  they  will,  as  their  own  mother  did  higher 
up,  by  the  trickle  that  overflows  from  one  little  pool  and 
fills  another.  From  these,  poor  lady,  she  was  ejected  as 
she  was  so  cabbage-like  in  profusion  of  foliage  and  so 
smothering  to  choicer  neighbours,  white  Calthas  and 
Cyananthus  lobatus,  and  this  last,  like  the  Princes  in  the 
Tower,  died  this  very  stuffy  death  before  I  noticed  what  was 
going  on.  I  could  forgive  almost  any  plant's  death  by 
overcrowding  if  it  were  done  by  that  lovely  new  mutation 
or  sport,  or  whatever  the  style  of  its  origin  may  be  described 
as,  which  was  shown  at  the  Royal  International  Show  and 
named  Mrs.  Berkeley.  I  understand  it  appeared  at  Coombe 
Wood  without  warning  among  a  batch  of  ordinary 
pulverulenta  seedlings,  and  although  it  has  a  good  sturdy 
constitution,  so  far  as  I  can  learn  it  has  refused  to  bear 
seed.  I  put  two  plants  out  in  a  sort  of  ditch  we  made 
across  a  newly-arranged  bed.  This  ditch  idea  is  a  try-on 
to  see  if  its  northern  facing  slope  will  be  cool  and  accept- 
able to  ferns  and  Primulas  of  thirsty  habits.  This  one 
liked  it,  and  the  spikes  of  flowers  were  in  beauty  for  a  long 
period.  I  cannot  think  of  any  name  to  describe  their  colour, 
but  I  believe  I  could  mix  Naples  yellow  and  Rose  madder 
and  arrive  at  something  like  its  creamy  flesh  tint,  and  it 
shades  into  apricot  and  tawny  orange  in  the  eye,  which 
gives  the  flower  a  warm  glow.  Yes,  I  hope  it  will  spread 
and  the  ferns  be  obliged  to  flee  before  it.  P.  Cockburniana 
147 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

at  present  has  a  place  in  the  ditch,  but  I  lose  it  here  after 
flowering,  but  mean  to  try  it  up  in  the  fish  hatchery,  where, 
dry  above  and  wet  below,  it  may  behave  as  luckier  folk 
have  found  it  to  do,  and  grow  into  a  clump. 

The  lovely  hybrid  "  Unique  Improved  "  did  well  at  first, 
and  allowed  me  to  split  it  up  into  a  nice  colony,  then  some- 
thing offended  it,  and  every  crown  yellowed  and  decayed, 
leaving  nothing  but  an  orphaned  seedling  which  flowered 
this  year  and  was  little  more  than  a  living  image  of  its 
grandpa,  Cockburniana. 


148 


CHAPTER    IX 

March  Winds 

A  PECK  of  dust  in  March,  we  have  all  been  taught,  is  worth 
a  king's  ransom.  The  farmer  may  find  it  so  ;  he  generally 
wants  it  dry  when  others  would  like  it  wet,  and  then 
grumbles  because  some  crop  has  not  grown.  He  is 
always  waiting  for  dry  weather  to  get  on  the  land  himself 
or  to  get  something  off  it,  so  he  may  put  that  hateful 
peck  of  what  the  schoolboy  defined  as  mud  with  the  juice 
squeezed  out,  on  his  credit  side,  but  I  do  not  suppose  I  am 
alone  among  gardeners  in  feeling  it  is  more  likely  to  cost 
a  king's  ransom  to  renew  the  plants  it  kills.  Those  cruel, 
drying  March  winds  do  so  much  terrible  damage,  or  at 
least  they  put  a  finishing  stroke  to  many  a  struggling 
invalid,  shaken  but  not  killed  by  the  winter's  frosts.  If 
only  they  could  tide  over  another  week  or  two  the  warmer 
ground  would  help  along  the  growth  of  their  new  roots, 
and  enough  sap  would  run  up  to  equalise  their  loss  by 
transpiration,  but  with  imperfect  roots  and  an  east  wind 
they  shrivel  up  and  give  up  the  struggle  in  an  hour  or 
two.  An  aged  Cistus  bush  will  often  be  the  first  to 
show  the  bill  is  coming  in  ;  Bamboos,  Miscanthus,  and 
Choisya  jot  down  fresh  items,  and  you  are  lucky  if  the 
young  green  shoots  of  Crown  Imperials,  Eremuri,  and 
precocious  Lilies  are  not  included.  It  is  an  anxious  and 
149 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

a  trying  time,  not  only  because  it  roughens  one's  own 
skin,  making  shaving  a  painful  bore,  and  the  corners  of 
one's  smile  less  expansive,  but  it  is  then  one  notes  day 
by  day  some  pet  plant's  failure  to  put  in  an  appear- 
ance, or  the  flagging  and  browning  of  a  cherished 
specimen. 

I  hate  the  grey,  sapless  look  of  the  pastures  during  this 
spell  of  dry  cold,  and  the  arrest  of  progress  in  the  flower 
beds.  They  look  emptier  than  a  week  before,  and  plants 
seem  to  shrink,  and  the  ground  turns  lighter  in  colour  and 
shows  out  more  conspicuously.  There  is  no  scent  of 
growth  or  pine  trees  on  the  wind,  and  often  a  numbing 
suggestion  of  snow  that  seems  to  paralyse  one's  nose  just 
below  the  bridge.  Spring  has  come,  but  one  cannot 
enjoy  it  or  feel  that  any  plant  is  safe,  for  any  night 
the  temperature  may  drop  low  enough  to  kill  treasures 
January  and  February  have  spared. 

Here  nothing  lies  between  us  and  the  North  Pole  to 
take  the  teeth  out  of  the  north-east  wind.  By  the  time 
it  has  bitten  and  shaken  our  tender  things  it  has  lost  much 
venom,  and  before  it  reaches  the  west  of  England  is  by 
comparison  a  refreshing  breeze.  Or  so  it  seems  to  me 
when  I  leave  my  wind-scorched  garden  and  go  west  of 
Swindon,  and  find  everything  green  and  smiling,  and  hear 
tales  of  what  the  east  wind  has  been  doing.  It  suits  a  few 
things  to  get  this  dry  spell,  but  chiefly  those  that  are 
lowly  and  sheltered  by  higher  ground  and  protecting 
hedges.  Some  of  the  later  Crocuses  open  out  wide  in  the 
sunny  hours,  and  are  successfully  fertilised  by  insect 
visitors.  The  Spring  Mandrake, Mandragora  ojficinarum,Qiten 
fails  to  get  its  earlier  February-born  flowers  set,  and  now 


March  Winds 

rushes  out  the  remaining  buds.  Dingy  grey-green  things 
they  are,  but  some  insects  see  and  visit  them,  and  if  I 
happen  along  and  find  them  agape,  I  use  my  amber  or 
sealing-wax  to  transfer  some  pollen,  for  though  I  do  not 
greatly  admire  the  dull  flowers,  nor  later  on  the  coarse, 
floppy  leaves,  I  do  like  to  see  a  good  crop  of  fruit,  like 
a  clutch  of  emerald-green  pheasant's  eggs,  or  a  dish  of 
unripe  tomatoes,  closely  packed  in  the  heart  of  each  plant. 
They  are  at  their  best  when  full  grown  but  still  unripe, 
for  they  only  lose  in  brightness  of  green  and  take  on  a 
dull  yellowish  tinge  when  they  begin  to  scent  the  air 
with  a  mixed  odour  of  bananas  and  pineapple,  and  their 
next  stage  is  to  roll  off  and  rot,  and,  unless  removed,  to 
produce  a  crowd  of  seedlings  where  they  fall.  A  very 
much  finer  thing  is  Mandragora  autumnalis,  but  like  many 
other  good  things  it  is  as  scarce,  at  any  rate  in  England, 
as  it  is  beautiful.  Fancy  a  rosette  of  handsome  deep 
green  leaves,  as  it  might  be  those  of  a  mullein,  lying  flat 
on  the  ground,  and  clean  and  vigorous  all  through  the 
winter  months,  and  then  fill  up  the  centre  of  this  rosette 
with  a  score  of  purple  blossoms,  much  resembling  stem- 
less  flowers  of  Anemone  Pulsatilla,  and  you  have  some  idea 
of  what  the  Autumnal  Mandrake  should  be.  Ever  since 
last  November  I  had  been  watching  for  the  reappearance 
of  two  specimens,  and  though  it  was  not  until  the  middle 
of  May  I  rejoiced  over  their  safe  return,  I  write  of  them 
here  as  they  should  be  in  flower  at  the  same  time  as  their 
dowdy  sister,  and  I  believe  should  have  kept  up  a  succes- 
sion of  their  purple  blossoms  from  the  late  autumn.  But 
it  is  an  unpunctual  creature,  and  you  never  know  when  it 
will  choose  to  flower  from  season  to  season.  Its  name 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

certainly  implies  an  autumnal  habit  when  at  home,  but 
don't  rely  on  names — plants  are  no  more  bound  by  them 
than  Irish  railway  officials  by  the  time-table.  "  Sure,  sorr, 
and  aren't  you  taking  the  time-table  too  seriously  ? "  was 
an  Irish  guard's  reply  to  a  query  whether  it  was  possible 
the  train  could  make  up  for  an  unauthorised  stop  of  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  !  Carlina  acaulis  grows  a  fine,  tall  stem 
in  English  gardens,  and  Caltha  polypetala  never  had  a  petal, 
let  alone  many  of  them,  so  never  take  a  name  too  seriously. 
The  only  plant  of  M.  autumnalis  I  have  known  intimately 
for  any  length  of  time  is  the  magnificent  old  specimen 
under  the  south  wall  at  Bitton,  and  for  many  years  it  has 
flowered  in  the  early  spring,  but  last  autumn  it  began  to 
justify  its  name  by  an  autumnal  flowering.  I  had  heard 
of  plants  in  Trinity  College  Gardens,  Dublin,  and  it  is  in 
the  Kew  Hand-List,  so  I  hope  flourishes  there,  though  I 
have  never  seen  it,  but  beyond  that  I  never  met  it  else- 
where in  England  except  in  extreme  youth — yearlings, 
that  I  had  grown  myself  or  seen  at  Bitton,  raised  from 
the  fruits  of  the  venerable  specimen.  But  neither  here 
nor  there  could  these  one-year-olds  be  induced,  whatever 
treatment  was  offered  them,  to  reappear  when  once  they 
had  disappeared  below  ground.  They  formed  a  fat  little 
white  root,  but  it  slept  like  the  Sleeping  Beauty,  and  no 
prince  could  be  found  to  wake  it.  A  friend  of  mine  once 
described  a  plant  he  had  seen  in  Sicily,  and  I  recognised 
my  long-desired  Mandrake,  and  railed  at  him  for  bringing 
no  roots,  so  when  another  good  friend  told  me  he  was 
going  to  Sicily,  and  asked  could  he  send  me  any  plant,  I, 
imagining  that  island  was  paved  from  end  to  end  with 
Mandrake  rosettes,  begged  for  a  couple  of  middle-aged 
152 


d  of  Terrace— with  London  Bridge  balusters.     (See  p.  235.) 


March  Winds 

ones,  and  they  came,  rather  dry  in  the  leaves  after  their 
journey,  but  with  rich  purple  flowers  still  fresh  enough  to 
proclaim  them  as  good  forms.  Only  later  I  learnt  that 
my  friend,  having  hunted  diligently  but  in  vain,  consulted 
a  high  authority,  and  was  told  that  they  only  grew  in  a 
limited  area  near  Messina,  many  miles  from  his  intended 
wanderings.  Such  is  the  kindness  of  the  hearts  of  good 
gardeners  that  in  spite  of  all  this,  those  two  good  men 
contrived  to  get  me  the  plants,  and  now  they  have  revived 
from  their  first  and  perilous  sleep  in  their  new  home. 

It  must  have  been  to  get  a  higher  price  for  the  roots, 
and  deter  others  from  collecting  them,  that  the  herbalists 
invented  such  lies  as  to  the  difficulties  of  digging  up  the 
Mandrake.  They  declared  that  it  screamed  so  fearfully 
during  the  operation  that  all  who  heard  it  died,  so  the 
best  way  to  obtain  it  was  to  loosen  it  a  little  in  the  ground 
and  tie  it  to  the  tail  of  a  hungry  dog  and  set  his  meal  be- 
yond his  reach.  His  struggles  to  reach  it  pulled  up  the 
root,  its  screams  killed  the  dog,  and  you  returned  later  on 
to  collect  your  prize  from  the  corpse.  I  have  dug  up 
many  a  one,  and  though  I  found  the  large  root  took  a 
deal  of  digging — 

"  There  was  silence  supreme  !     Not  a  shriek,  not  a  scream, 
Scarcely  even  a  howl  or  a  groan," 

and  I,  and  moreover  my  dog  who  watched  the  operation, 
were  none  the  worse.  Nor  have  I  ever  found  one  with  a 
root  showing  more  resemblance  to  the  human  form  than 
any  bifid  Parsnip  does.  The  usual  run  of  old  drawings 
represented  the  human-shaped  body  as  below  ground 
forming  the  roots,  and  the  leaves  and  fruits  issuing  from 
153 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

the  head,  but  in  the  wonderful  old  map  of  the  world 
which  is  one  of  the  treasures  of  Hereford  Cathedral  may 
be  seen  a  Mandrake  whose  body  branches  up  above- 
ground,  the  head  resting  on  the  surface  like  a  Turnip  and 
the  hairs  of  the  head  growing  down  as  roots. 

The  Lesser  Celandine,  Ranunculus  Ficaria,  often  flowers 
during  the  windy,  leonine  blustering  of  this  month.  The 
common  wild  forms  one  constantly  struggles  with  but 
cannot  entirely  expel  from  the  garden,  but  the  major  form 
from  Italy  does  not  increase  too  quickly,  and  is  a  fine 
thing  when  well  grown,  quite  three  times  as  large  as  the 
undesirable  native.  I  like  the  white  form  of  our  wild  one, 
though  ;  it  has  a  charming,  creamy  tint  and  is  as  beauti- 
fully varnished  as  any  Buttercup.  It  begins  to  flower  very 
early  in  the  year,  but  the  later  flowers  are  the  larger. 
The  double  form  is  worth  growing,  and  in  ordinary 
seasons  I  notice  it  flowers  when  those  of  the  hedgerow 
and  meadow  are  almost  over.  A  variegated  one  I  found 
in  a  hedge  has  kept  up  its  character  for  two  seasons, 
and  its  leaves  are  prettily  blotched  with  creamy  white. 

Blotched  leaves  suggest  the  Pulmonarias,  and  though 
we  need  not  believe,  with  those  who  upheld  the  Doctrine 
of  Signatures,  that  the  white  blotches  proclaimed  it  a 
sovereign  remedy  for  ulcerated  and  spotted  lungs,  because 
as  Robert  Turner  states,  "  God  hath  imprinted  upon  the 
Plants,  Herbs,  and  Flowers,  as  it  were  in  Hieroglyphicks, 
the  very  signature  of  their  vertues,"  yet  we  may  admire  the 
"browne  greene  leaves  sprinkled  with  divers  white  spots 
like  drops  of  milke,"  as  Lyte  has  described  them.  I  have 
a  great  liking  for  them  all,  and  have  collected  together  all 
I  have  met  with  that  show  any  variation,  and  the  working 
154 


March  Winds 

out  of  the  assemblage  is  one  of  the  jobs  I  have  in  store 
for  that  day  when  I  shall  have  some  spare  time.  Perhaps  a 
broken  leg  might  fix  the  date,  but  at  present  it  does  not 
appear  on  my  list  of  engagements.  My  first  affection 
for  Lungworts  dates  from  a  day  when  I  collected  some 
very  distinct  forms  of  P.  saccharata  from  a  little  wood  near 
Bayonne,  where  they  grew  mingled  with  Narcissus  pallidus 
praecox.  Purple  and  red-flowered  forms  were  there, 
charming  with  the  sulphur  of  the  Daffodil,  and  also  their 
leaves  varied  with  larger  or  smaller  mottling,  and  one  form 
had  almost  the  whole  leaf  grey  and  white  save  for  a  narrow 
edging  of  green.  P.  saccharata  is  one  of  the  earliest  to 
flower,  and  the  redder  forms  are  very  attractive  ;  they  look 
happier  after  a  little  frost  than  a  frozen  and  thawed  blue 
one  does,  and  if  you  cut  away  the  seed  heads  and  so  induce 
really  strong  leaves,  the  variety  of  their  patterns  is  good  to 
see  till  flowering  time  comes  back  again.  The  best  of  all 
red  ones  is  a  species,  P.  rubra,  with  large,  pale  green, 
unspotted  leaves.  Its  flowers  are  of  a  charming  soft 
scarlet-red,  and  never  die  off  purple.  If  frequently 
divided,  and  grown  in  good  soil  in  sheltered  corners,  it 
will  often  begin  flowering  in  December  and  go  on  im- 
proving accordingly  as  the  weather  does  until  May.  The 
best  blue  is  a  mysterious  form  known  by  many  names,  and 
as  my  legs  are  still  both  sound  I  cannot  yet  hunt  it  down 
accurately.  It  is  generally  known  as  P.  azurea,  which 
authorities  make  but  a  form  of  angustifolia.  I  have  long 
known  it  as  Mawson's  Blue,  and  as  it  has  short,  wide,  heart- 
shaped  leaves  I  hope  it  is  not  an  angustifolia  and  doomed 
to  live  under  so  false  a  name.  It  is  dwarf,  free  flowering, 
early,  and  easy  to  grow  if  divided  every  third  year — in  fact 
155 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

all  that  a  good  little  plant  should  be,  and  its  colour  is  not 
ashamed  to  sit  close  by  Chionodoxa  sardensis.  Its  leaves 
are  unspotted  and  do  not  become  coarse,  and  it  will  not 
spread  too  far,  for  all  who  see  it  and  have  it  not  are  ready 
to  carry  off  a  portion.  The  best  white  is  the  albino  of 
saccharata,  but  it,  like  ojficinalis  alba,  is  slow  of  increase : 
both  are  pretty, -with  really  white  flowers  that  go  well 
with  the  spotted  leaves.  The  only  other  white  I  know  is 
a  form  of  P.  arvernensis,  but  though  there  are  many  flowers 
to  a  head  they  are  small  and  crowded,  and  I  do  not  care 
so  greatly  for  it  or  its  typical  dark  blue  form  as  I  do  for 
the  larger  flowered  species. 

I  have  not  yet  lit  upon  a  really  satisfactory  Cambridge 
blue  form.  One  that  I  first  saw  at  Wisley  looks  as  though 
it  should  be  a  pale  edition  of  Mawson's,  but  has  never 
grown  or  flowered  freely  here.  Half  way  up  a  mountain 
side  in  Tyrol  I  found  a  pale  form  lovely  to  behold  in  the 
shade  of  its  rocks  :  it  disappointed  me  this  Spring,  appearing 
washy,  but  did  not  flower  very  heartily,  and  may  be  all  I 
fancied  it  when  it  settles  down.  Of  purple-flowered  sorts 
thereare  many.  P.grandifloralhzve  fromGlasnevin,ashowy 
thing  when  fully  out,  but  rather  on  the  coarse  side,  and  not 
very  long  in  full  beauty.  A  strong-growing,  long-leaved 
one  from  Spain,  variable  in  depth  of  colour,  is  good  in  its 
best  forms,  and  very  hardy  and  early,  but  takes  up  a  great 
deal  of  room  in  summer  with  its  immense,  unspotted  and 
therefore  rather  dull  leaves.  I  have  a  set  of  puzzling 
intermediates,  many  of  them  seedlings  I  expect,  from 
Captain  Pinwill's  wonderful  garden,  and  still  others  from 
Bitton,  the  like  of  which  I  have  been  quite  unable  to  trace 
in  either  of  the  good  monographs  by  Du  Mortier  and 
156 


Tulipa  Kaufmanniana.     (See  p.  237.) 


March  Winds 

Kerner,  but  that  leg-mending  period  may  some  day  reveal 
them  among  their  pages. 

Pulmonarias  make  a  good  bold  edging  to  a  shrubbery 
or  bed  of  coarse  herbaceous  plants  :  the  saccharata  forms 
are  perhaps  best  used  thus,  as  their  handsome  leaves 
survive  ordinary  winters  so  cheerfully.  P.  arvernensis  is 
best  in  the  rock  garden,  and  it  and  our  native  P.  angusti- 
folia,  which  I  have  collected  in  the  New  Forest,  die  down 
entirely  in  winter. 

Among  other  brave  plants  that  take  the  winds  of 
March  amicably  Hacquetia  (Dondia)  Epipactis  is  a  good 
thing  for  a  shady  corner.  It  looks  at  first  sight  like  a 
green  Hellebore,  but  a  closer  glance  shows  that  the 
golden  centre  is  an  umbel  of  small  yellow  flowers  set  in 
an  involucre  of  green  leaves,  and  is  almost  an  Astrantia, 
and  only  just  saved  from  such  a  relationship  by  a  very 
slight  difference  in  the  shape  of  the  fruit.  It  has  a  very 
bright  and  cheerful  appearance  in  these  nippy,  cold  days, 
when  its  glossy  green  leaves  and  yellow  heads  take  the 
place  of  the  Winter  Aconites,  but  it  increases  slowly,  and 
so  is  never  seen  in  profusion. 

Adonis  amurensis  should  also  be  making  a  show,  but 
slugs  love  its  fat  round  flower-buds  when  they  are  first 
through  and  still  a  bronze  colour,  and  they  often  lose 
their  hearts  as  early  in  the  day  as  the  heroine  of  a  penny 
novelette.  The  double  forms  are  quaint  and  interesting, 
but  always  flower  later  than  the  far  prettier  single  form. 
Several  Corydalis  species  join  the  procession  now.  C. 
angustifolia  is  generally  first,  an  ivory  white,  and  too 
delicate-looking  a  thing  to  be  out  so  early  ;  then  follow 
the  more  robust  creamy  white  C.  Allenii  and  C.  bulbosa 
157 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

with  its  dingy,  faded-lilac  flowers.  I  have  never  yet 
made  up  my  mind  as  to  whether  I  like  bulbosa  to  spread 
about  or  no.  On  the  one  hand  it  is  so  early  and 
does  no  harm,  but  on  the  other  it  is  not  very  attractive 
and  takes  up  a  certain  amount  of  space.  C.  cava  is 
brighter  in  colour  and  also  has  a  good  white  form,  and 
both  are  welcome  to  spread  where  they  will.  C.  Lede- 
bouriana  and  C.  Semenowii  did  well  for  some  years, 
but  have  died,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  for  I  liked  their 
glaucous  leaves  and  the  pink  flowers  of  the  one  and 
the  orange  of  the  other.  They  would  travel  under- 
ground in  their  supposed  resting  season  and  come  up  in 
most  unexpected  places,  and  this  made  it  hard  to  prevent 
their  being  dug  into  or  getting  smothered  by  a  neighbour. 
I  have  not  seen  them  for  some  years,  but  always  look  out 
for  their  reappearance  each  Spring,  hoping  they  may  have 
returned  from  their  travels.  The  beauty  of  the  family  is 
C.  nobilis  from  Siberia,  but  it  does  not  produce  its  light 
yellow  flowers  till  May.  Each  blossom  has  a  curious 
blackish-green  tip  to  it,  as  though  a  beetle  sat  upon  it. 
Except  Adlumia  cirrhosa,  a  very  near  relation,  and  some 
hateful  weeds  like  Cardamine  hirsuta,  I  can  remember  no 
plants  that  ripen  seeds  so  quickly  as  this  Corydalis  family. 
It  seems  one  day  the  flowers  look  a  little  faded  and  wan, 
and  then  the  next  they  fall  off,  leaving  a  fat  green  pod,  and 
if  you  break  it  open  the  seeds  are  black  and  shining  and 
look  ready  for  sowing. 

Petasites  nivea  is  not  common  in  gardens,  but  is  very 

much  so  in  subalpine  regions  :  it  lacks  the  delicious  scent 

of  P.  fragrans,  the  Winter  Heliotrope,  but  then  it  does  not 

run   so    violently    and  become  such  a  nuisance,  and  its 

158 


March  Winds 

flowers  are  more  attractive  to  the  eye,  with  bright  green 
bracts  and  creamy-white  blossoms.  They  generally  appear 
with  the  New  Year,  but  are  dwarf  until  March,  when  they 
run  up  on  long  stems  among  the  fresh  young  leaves.  It  is 
a  good  plant  to  fill  up  odd  corners  among  shrubs,  especially 
at  the  back  of  borders  where  tall  herbaceous  plants  are 
grown  in  front.  P.  japonica  gigantea  is  not  very  lavish  with 
its  large  flower  heads,  but  a  few  go  a  long  way,  as  each 
one  in  the  distance  looks  like  a  large  clump  of  Primroses, 
leaves  and  all.  Its  immense  leaves  are  its  best  part,  of 
course,  and  are  those  one  sees  in  Japanese  pictures  being 
used  as  umbrellas.  They  want  a  swampy  bit  of  ground 
and  good  feeding  to  grow  large  over  here,  and  in  this  dry 
garden  the  poor  things  look  tired  and  finally  sit  down  on 
hot  dry  days.  P.  palmata  is  seldom  seen  ;  its  handsome 
leaves  are  worth  having,  especially  as  they  are  happy  in 
any  rough  corner.  The  variegated  form  of  Tussilago 
Farfara  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  variegated  plants, 
but  is  as  hard  to  establish  and  keep  as  the  common  green 
form  is  to  destroy.  It  will  walk  underground  quite  a  yard 
between  dying  down  and  reappearing,  which  is  annoying 
if  you  have  it  among  other  plants  which  would  not 
appreciate  the  cold  poultice  of  a  half  dozen  of  its  great 
leaves  pressing  down  on  their  chests.  It  has  walked  along 
one  border  until  it  has  reached  a  triangular  corner  and  the 
gravel  walk,  and  here  it  has  received  a  check  and  huddled 
itself  together  to  think  how  to  proceed.  It  got  such  a 
snubbing  for  appearing  in  the  middle  of  the  path  that  I 
hope  it  will  not  try  again  and  get  across  to  the  strawberry 
beds.  Its  flowers  are  quite  pretty  ;  the  stems  have  much 
red  and  brown  on  them,  but  otherwise  they  are  similar  to 
159 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

the  small  dandelion  affairs  that  star  the  railway  banks  so 
early  in  the  year  and  puzzle  many  travellers  as  to  their 
identity  both  when  in  flower  and  afterwards  in  seed,  when 
they  are  balls  of  silvery  pappus  silk.  Very  few  people 
recognise  the  flowers  of  this  variegated  one  in  the  garden, 
coming  as  they  do  without  any  leaves,  and  they  do  not  think 
of  the  old  Colt's-foot.  Prunus  cerasifera  atropurpurea,  is 
the  name  the  authorities  command  us  to  use  for  what 
we  know  better  as  P.  Pissardii.  Both  it  and  the  newer 
form  known  as  Moseri,  which  has  double  pink  flowers,  have 
flowered  marvellously  freely  here  the  last  two  seasons,  and 
have  been  very  beautiful  throughout  March,  and  would 
have  been  still  more  so  had  not  the  sparrows  breakfasted, 
lunched,  dined,  and  supped,  besides  taking  odd  meals  such 
as  elevens  and  five  o'clock  tea  in  them,  the  Plum  flowers 
alone  constituting  the  menu  of  each  meal. 

I  find  it  a  charming  plant  to  cut  before  the  flower-buds 
open,  for  they  expand  and  last  well  in  water.  As  a  rule 
I  dislike  mixing  different  kinds  of  flowers  in  vases,  and 
only  put  their  own  leaves  with  them,  but  the  brown 
of  these  Plum  leaves  is  really  charming  with  bright  yellow 
Daffodils,  such  as  Henry  Irving,  and  Almond  blossom 
makes  a  delightful  harmony  with  Iris  unguicularis.  Some 
seasons  the  early  Chinese  Almond,  Prunus  Davidiana,  is  a 
beautiful  sight  in  January,  but  the  last  two  years  when 
other  things  were  so  forward  they  hung  back,  and  only 
came  out  a  very  little  before  the  common  Almond.  The 
white  and  pink  are  both  worth  having  because  of  their 
flowering  early,  but  are  not  to  be  compared  with  the  real 
Almond.  I  find  it  is  useful  to  spray  them  before  the 
buds  swell  with  quassia  and  soft  soap,  to  discourage  the 
sparrows  from  holding  their  feasts  in  and  on  them. 
1 60 


Tulipa  praestans 


CHAPTER    X 

April  Showers 

WHAT  a  blessed  time  it  is  for  garden  and  gardener  when 
the  wind  goes  round  to  the  south-west  and  warm  April 
showers  begin  to  fall.  The  real  thing,  of  course,  not  the 
chilly,  wind-driven  sorts  compounded  of  sleet,  hail,  or  ice- 
cold  rain  that  come  from  the  north  with  slight  variation 
to  east,  and  seem  arranged  on  purpose  to  destroy  the 
Plum  blossoms.  They  leave  the  air  several  degrees 
colder,  and  if  followed  by  a  clear  sky  after  sunset  are  the 
forerunners  of  a  killing  frost.  This  form  of  April  shower 
belongs  to  what  old  country  folk  call  Blackthorn  Winter, 
an  annual  spell  of  bad  weather  that  we  never  escape  in 
the  Eastern  Counties.  The  only  time  I  have  been  in 
Cornwall  in  April,  my  familiar  native  Blackthorn  Winter 
accompanied  me,  and  I  saw  the  Rhododendrons  and 
Camellias  turned  brown  as  leather,  young  Colt's  Foot 
leaves  singed  by  frost,  and  thick  ice  on  tanks  and  pools. 
Therefore  I  trembled  to  think  of  what  Arctic  conditions 
must  be  prevailing  here,  but  on  my  return  found  nothing 
worse  than  usual  had  happened,  and  the  plants,  being  more 
backward  than  the  pampered  Cornish  ones,  had  not 
suffered  very  much. 

After  a  week  or  more  of  blizzards  and  squalls,  and  just 
when  everybody  has  decided  that  it  is  the  most  curious 
161  L 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

and  disagreeable  season  they  remember,  round  goes  the 
wind,  hands  can  be  taken  out  of  pockets  and  yet  no 
longer  turn  blue  and  numb,  the  dove-coloured  flush  on 
the  trees  of  the  woodland  turns  to  a  varied  shimmer  of 
tender  greyish  yellows  and  faint  greens,  even  the  oaks 
show  raw  sienna  specklings,  somebody  hears  the  cuckoo, 
it  rains  for  twenty  minutes  and  the  sun  then  hurries  out 
and  makes  a  rainbow  on  the  retreating  clouds,  every 
plant  glistens  with  sunlit  raindrops,  and  the  air  smells  all 
the  sweeter  and  feels  all  the  warmer  for  the  shower. 

Then  it  is  that  grass  turns  to  the  true  green  of  Spring, 
both  on  lawn  and  meadow,  and  the  flower  stems  grow  by 
inches,  leaves  fall  outwards  instead  of  standing  up  stiffly 
at  attention,  and  in  a  good  garden  the  borders  should  look 
full  once  more,  and  the  bare  earth  should  disappear  for 
the  next  six  months.  Then  the  days  are  not  long  enough 
to  enjoy  the  rush  of  flowers  and  to  do  all  the  thinning, 
replanting  and  tying  up,  and  a  hundred  other  things  that 
always  want  doing  in  a  garden  in  full  growth. 

We  always  try  to  anticipate  the  coming  of  the  April 
showers  by  removing  the  row  of  lights,  a  heritage  from  an 
ancient  dismantled  vinery,  from  the  bank  of  the  rock  garden 
devoted  to  succulent  plants  hardy  enough  to  stand  frost  if 
kept  dry,  but  too  tender  to  battle  through  damp  and  cold 
together.  If  I  could  have  foreseen  the  trouble  and  the 
ugly  effect  of  this  row  of  lights  from  November  till  April, 
and  the  pain  caused  by  their  wicked  little  barbed  spines,  I 
should  never  have  purchased  the  first  three  species  of 
Opuntia  that  captivated  me  on  the  rockwork  in  Robert 
Veitch's  Exeter  Nursery.  That  trio  grew  so  well  that  I 
added  a  few  more,  and  learning  that  Mr.  Andrews  of 
162 


April  Showers 


Colorado  issued  a  list  of  many  other  kinds,  besides  certain 
Cereus  and  Mammillaria  species  that  were  reputed  hardy,  I 
wrote  for  that  list,  and  then  for  those  Cacti,  and  by  degrees 
some  of  the  more  ordinary  plants  have  been  banished  from 
this  bank  and  the  soil  replaced  by  a  mixture  of  all  the 
gritty,  moisture-scorning  materials  I  could  lay  hands  on, 
such  as  plaster  from  a  fallen  ceiling,  brick  and  mortar 
rubble  from  demolished  buildings,  well-weathered  cinders 
from  the  furnaces,  road  sand  and  silver  sand,  until  nothing 
but  a  Cactus  or  other  xerophytic  succulent  plant  could 
be  expected  to  live  in  it.  It  is  an  anxious  moment  that 
recurs  each  Spring  when  the  lights  are  off,  and  I  can  once 
more  get  at  the  fat  green  lumps  I  have  only  been  able  to 
gaze  at  through  the  glass  before,  and  can  poke  them  gently 
with  a  bit  of  stick  to  discover  whether  they  are  hard  and 
healthy  or  soft  and  decaying.  By  being  bold  enough  to 
try  almost  any  succulent  plant  that  came  my  way  and  of 
which  any  reasonable  hopes  of  hardiness  could  be  enter- 
tained, I  have  got  together  a  large  collection  of  plants  that 
look  as  though  they  have  no  business  to  be  out  in  the  open 
air.  Sir  Thomas  Hanbury  always  took  a  great  interest  in 
this  bank  when  he  came  to  see  me,  and  sent  me  many 
baskets  of  treasures  from  La  Mortola  to  experiment  with, 
Mr.  Lynch  helped  me  from  the  rich  collection  grown  in 
front  of  the  houses  at  Cambridge,  and  I  bought  kinds  I 
thought  worth  trying  from  the  Continental  nurseries.  It  is 
perhaps  as  well  that  about  half  of  them  have  proved  too 
tender  for  our  winters,  or  the  congestion  of  prickly  things 
would  have  been  worse  than  it  is  now.  I  greatly  enjoy  seeing 
these  wrinkled  Opuntias  swell  out  in  the  Spring  rains  and 
then  show  red  points  where  the  new  growths  are  budding, 
163 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

and  trying  to  make  up  my  mind  which  are  flower-buds 
and  which  new  branches,  for  years  of  experience  have  not 
yet  taught  me  any  means  of  distinguishing  them  at  this 
initial  stage.  Then  there  is  Senecio  tropaeolioides  to  look  at : 
so  far,  after  clearing  off  its  dead  leaves,  the  tuberous  root 
has  contained  some  sound  portions,  and  these  have  soon 
responded  to  warm  moisture  and  sent  up  their  glaucous 
leaves,  as  peltate  as  those  of  any  Tom  Thumb  Nasturtium, 
and  quite  remarkable  even  in  such  a  family  of  mimics  as 
the  Groundsel  tribe. 

A  gentle  tug  at  the  centres  of  various  Bromeliads, 
Rhodostachys  species  mostly,  with  a  Dyckia  or  two,  and 
most  marvellous  of  all  Bilbergia  nutans,  which  is  usually 
seen  in  a  greenhouse,  will  show  whether  they  still  adhere 
to  the  roots  or  have  rotted  off  at  the  collar.  Mesembry- 
anthemum  linguaeforme  and  M.  uncinatum  generally  show  that 
they  have  got  to  work  and  begun  Spring  growth  before  the 
glass  lid  came  off;  Agave Parryi  and  A.utahensis  I  have  never 
yet  found  affected  by  a  winter.  A  few  of  our  Cape  plants 
share  this  protected  corner  ;  a  fine  old  Gerberajamesonii  dies 
down  but  regularly  reappears  soon  after  the  rain  reaches 
it,  and  Hypoxis  Rooperi  and  Haplocarpa  scaposa,  two  free- 
blooming,  yellow-flowered  plants  that  are  seldom  seen 
thriving  in  the  open,  behave  in  a  similar  way.  We  try  to 
remove  these  overhead  lights  on  the  ist  of  April  each  year, 
to  let  the  rain  moisten  and  wake  the  plants  of  course,  and 
not  at  all  because  it  is  All  Fools'  Day  as  you  might  think, 
dear  reader.  Perhaps  some  summer  day  you  will  see 
these  Prickly  Pears  and  vegetable  sea-urchins  with  their 
great  yellow,  salmon,  or  white  blossoms  wide  open  in  the 
sun,  and  will  be  allowed  to  touch  the  anthers  of  the 
164 


April  Showers 


Optmtias  and  watch  them  close  spirally  like  the  tentacles 
of  a  sea  anemone  on  a  shelled  winkle,  and  then  perhaps 
you  will  forgive  and  justify  our  apparent  folly  in  giving 
them  overhead  protection  during  the  dull  months  ;  only 
overhead,  remember,  for  the  sides  are  not  closed  in  at  all, 
so  that  we  feel  we  grow  these  fat  fleshy  things  in  a  way 
that  we  can  describe  as  in  the  open  air. 

Now  comes  the  rush  of  the  Daffodils,  and  one  can 
indulge  oneself  in  picking  freely,  and  getting  down  extra 
flower  vases  from  the  shelves,  and  feel  that  from  now 
onwards,  till  the  frosts  damage  the  latest  Michaelmas 
Daisies,  there  should  always  be  a  plentiful  supply  of  flowers 
to  pick  from  the  open  ground.  Crown  Imperials  (Fritil- 
laria  imperialis)  now  shoot  up  another  foot  and  take  on 
their  full  beauty.  The  two  best  are  those  known  as  maxima 
lutea  and  m.  rubra.  I  prefer  the  yellow  one,  but  that  may 
be  because  it  does  not  grow  so  well  here  as  the  red,  and 
one  always  loves  most  the  delicate  child.  The  old  red  one 
does  well  anywhere  I  put  it,  and  increases  only  too  fast, 
necessitating  lifting  and  dividing  the  clumps  oftener  than  I 
like,  for  the  right  moment  to  do  this  comes  when  one  is 
full  of  other  work,  and  it  is  unwise  to  touch  them  at  all  if  it 
cannot  be  done  soon  after  the  leaves  turn  yellow,  as  they 
root  very  early,  and  soon  deteriorate  if  kept  out  of  the 
ground.  I  have  the  scentless  form  here,  Fritillaria  imperialis 
inodora,  but  it  has  never  done  very  well  and  is  always  a  dwarf 
plant,  very  unlike  those  I  have  seen  in  better  condition  in 
Holland,  where  there  exists  also  a  glorious  plum-coloured 
form  that  I  long  to  see  in  this  garden,  but  cannot  induce 
to  cross  the  water.  A  good  race  of  scentless  Crown  Im- 
perials would  be  worth  working  for.  Surely  some  student 
165 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

of  Mendelism  might  investigate  the  family  to  see  whether 
tall,  scentless,  and  yellow  may  not  be  a  possible  combina- 
tion of  Mendelian  characters.  The  old  forms  possess  such 
an  awful  stink,  a  mixture  of  mangy  fox,  dirty  dog-kennel, 
the  small  cats'  house  at  the  Zoo,  and  Exeter  Railway 
Station,  where  for  some  unknown  reason  the  trains  let  out 
their  superfluous  gas  to  poison  the  travellers.  The  various 
species  of  Codonopsis  possess  a  similar  odour,  but  have 
the  decency  only  to  let  it  loose  when  broken,  and  then  of 
course  it  is  fair  for  them  to  retaliate,  but  Crown  Imperials 
waft  it  abroad  on  a  lovely  Spring  day  without  being  touched. 
One  can  do  without  the  stinking  Phuopsis  stylosa  (the 
Crucianella  and  Old  Foxy  of  my  childhood)  in  the  garden, 
but  I  cannot  forego  Crown  Imperials  even  though  I  have 
to  hold  my  nose  sometimes  when  near  them.  Like  most 
things,  however,  this  is  a  matter  of  taste,  and  hunting  folk 
enjoy  this  odour  in  gardens.  I  love  showing  children  the 
tears  in  a  Crown  Imperial's  eyes,  and  of  all  the  monkish 
legends,  I  like  best  that  which  tells  of  the  origin  of  these. 
How  that  when  Our  Saviour  entered  the  Garden  of  Geth- 
semane  all  the  flowers  bowed  their  heads,  save  the  Crown 
Imperial,  which  was  too  proud  of  its  green  crown  and  up- 
right circle  of  milk-white  blossoms  to  show  humility,  but  on 
the  other  hand  expected  admiration.  When  gently  reproved 
by  its  Creator,  it  saw  its  error  and  bowed  its  head,  flushing 
red  with  shame,  and  has  ever  since  held  this  position  and 
carried  tears  in  its  eyes.  These  honey  drops  are  very 
curious,  and  though  the  cavities  which  distil  them  and  in 
which  they  hang  are  to  be  found  in  some  degree  in  other 
Fritillarias,  they  reach  their  highest  development  in  F.  itn- 
perialis,  and  being  lined  with  white  they  have  a  wonderfully 
166 


April  Showers 


pearly  effect  when  filled  with  the  honey.  What  animal  in 
its  native  Persia  looks  up  into  the  flowers  and  is  attracted 
by  these  glistening  drops  ?  Observers  have  watched  honey- 
bees alight  on  the  stigma  and  crawl  up  to  it  to  reach  the 
honey,  and  as  this  flower  is  protogynous  it  can  only 
receive  pollen  from  an  older  flower,  thus  ensuring  cross- 
fertilisation.  These  observations  were  made  in  gardens  in 
Germany,  but  surely  this  tall  drink,  this  pool  of  nectar,  is 
not  so  cunningly  arranged  for  nothing  larger  than  honey- 
bees. 

The  double  flowered  forms  are  not  free  in  flowering  nor 
very  pretty  when  they  do  overcome  their  ungenerous  habits, 
and  if  they  die,  I  shall  not  buy  others.  The  Crown-upon- 
crown  variety  is  curious  with  its  second  tier  of  green  crown 
leaves,  and  like  the  fasciated  form  known  as  Slagswaard  it 
is  only  a  very  strong,  well-grown  bulb  that  produces  the 
abnormal  structure,  and  in  most  seasons  my  clumps  cannot 
be  recognised  from  the  ordinary  form.  I  am  fond  of  the 
two  variegated  forms,  both  the  golden  and  the  silver  ;  the 
mingling  of  burnt  sienna,  green  and  cream  colour  in  a 
young  shoot,  is  very  beautiful — especially  when  backed  by 
a  group  of  the  green-leaved  forms. 

F.  perstca  exists  but  without  happiness,  and  I  should 
like  more  of  its  curiously  metallic  effect :  the  glaucous 
leaves  suggest  weathered  copper,  greened  with  age,  and 
the  flowers  are  like  .bronze  bells  wrought  by  some 
Japanese  artist.  F.  pyrenaica  has  somewhat  similar 
flowers,  but  they  are  parcel-gilt,  and  also  lack  the  plum- 
like  bloom  so  suggestive  of  aged  and  weathered  metal 
which  is  the  great  charm  of  persica.  I  have  a  fine 
tall  form  with  yellow  flowers,  which  is  by  repute  and 
167 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

tradition  a  form  of  pyrenaica,  but  quite  unlike  it  in  appear- 
ance and  habit,  as  here  pyrenaka  increases  so  freely  it 
requires  frequent  thinning  to  get  a  good  flowering,  but 
this  yellow  beauty  is  very  slow  to  spread.  A  single  bulb 
given  me  by  Dr.  Lowe,  who  told  me  he  had  it  from  Miss 
Hope  of  -Edinburgh,  has  in  twenty  years  only  trebled 
itself.  Very  much  like  it  in  build,  but  with  a  pleasing 
dull  crimson  bell,  F.  gracilis  is  both  rare  and  beautiful. 
It  came  to  me  through  a  kind  friend  who  travels  to  strange 
out-of-the-way  places  and  often  sends  me  unusual  plants 
from  distant  lands.  This  one  has  a  very  limited  range  in 
certain  Montenegrin  woods,  but  is  making  itself  happy  in 
this  rock  garden,  and  seeds  so  freely  I  hope  it  will  soon 
grace  many  others.  Several  forms  of  our  native  Snake's 
Head,  in  fact  as  many  as  I  can  get,  find  welcome  here — 
even  the  curious  double  form,  that  looks  like  a  bunch  of 
fragments  of  the  marbled  cover  of  the  exercise  books  we 
used  in  our  schoolroom  days.  The  pure  white  is  my 
favourite  of  all,  and  I  like  to  see  it  rising  out  of  Erica 
carnea  as  well  as  anywhere,  and  it  appears  to  like  such 
company  too,  and  seeds  freely  there.  The  curious  narrow- 
belled  form  known  as  var.  contorta  is  worth  growing.  I 
only  knew  of  the  white  until  recently,  when  I  saw  a  good 
stock  of  the  mottled  type  in  a  Dutch  nursery,  so  now  I 
grow  both,  but  the  white  is  the  more  attractive ;  the 
squared  shoulders  of  the  type  have  disappeared,  and  the 
long,  tubular,  white  flower  is  very  graceful.  This  cylin- 
drical aberration  has  been  noted  as  occurring  among  the 
normal  form  at  Wulfshagen,  and  has  been  observed  to  be 
too  narrow  to  admit  the  humble  bees  which  are  the  chief 
insect  visitors  of  this  species,  but  further  evidence  is 
168 


Helicodiceros  crinitus.     (See  p.  280.) 


April  Showers 


wanted  to  show  whether  these  flowers  are  fertile  and 
whether  this  is  a  cleistogamous  line  of  development  of 
service  to  the  plant,  or  a  useless  variation.  One  of  the. 
best  of  the  family  is  F.  pallidiflora,  and  if  it  has  a  fault  it 
lies  in  the  shortness  of  stem,  which  seems  insufficient  for 
the  large  bunch  of  soft  yellow  flowers.  It  grows  well 
here  in  semi-shade,  and  I  wish  I  could  say  the  same  of 
pudica,  recurva,  and  the  latifolia  forms,  all  of  which  have 
left  me.  v, 

Why  does  one  so  seldom  see  good  patches  of  San- 
guinaria  canadensis  ?  It  seems  to  ask  nothing  more  than 
planting  and  leaving  alone,  but  I  rather  expect  suffers 
from  being  lifted  and  stored,  as  is  almost  necessary  for  pur- 
poses of  sale,  and  so  is  difficult  to  obtain  in  robust  health. 

I  have  found  it  good-tempered  enough  if  divided 
when  in  full  growth,  and  it  is  one  of  the  plants  I  am  over 
generous  with,  as  I  do  so  enjoy  lifting  a  piece  and  seeing 
the  realistic  imitation  of  bleeding  given  by  a  broken  root. 
It  does  this  in  the  manner  of  a  grazed  wound,  a  gradual 
oozing  of  blood  from  several  pores,  and  not  a  gushing  out, 
which  might  upset  some  who  watched  the  process. 

A  good  clump  in  full  flower  is  one  of  the  joys  of 
April.  The  thick  white  petals  have  a  wonderful  brilliancy, 
while  the  anthers  are  of  a  soft  yellow,  rather  unusual  with 
a  white  flower.  It  is  a  very  variable  plant,  and  its  varieties 
have  borne  many  names.  That  known  as  grandiflora  is 
the  best,  but  I  see  by  Das  Pflanzenreich  that  it  ought  to  be 
known  as  var.  Dilleniana,  a  pretty  compliment  to  Dillenius 
and  his  beautiful  figure  of  it  in  the  Hortus  Elthamensis. 
He  also  figures  the  minor  form,  and  one  he  calls  flore 
pleno,  but  which  is  hardly  worthy  of  the  name,  having  only 
169 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

a  slightly  increased  number  of  petals  and  all  of  them  about 
half  the  proper  width.  I  have  such  a  form  here,  but  do 
not  like  it  as  well  as  the  wide-petalled  ones.  I  also  have 
a  rose-coloured  form,  but  I  find  that  only  in  certain 
seasons  is  there  any  trace  of  the  rose,  and  only  then  on 
newly-opened  flowers.  I  have  no  wish  to  see  Niagara  or 
New  York  sky-scrapers,  but  I  should  like  to  stand  in  a 
wood  full  of  Bloodroot  when  the  flowers  are  wide  open. 
The  blossoms  do  not  last  long,  but  to  catch  a  clump  with 
fifty  or  so  widely  agape  is  a  treat  worth  lingering  over, 
perhaps  even  a  camp  stool  and  a  long  visit,  for  it  is  only 
on  a  really  fine  warm  Spring  morning  it  deigns  to  open, 
and  if  a  few  days  of  bad  weather  follow  you  may  find 
every  petal  lying  on  the  ground  by  the  end  of  them. 

Magnolia  stellata  in  full  flower  is  not  unlike  a  magnified 
Bloodroot  growing  on  a  bush.  I  have  only  one  specimen 
in  the  garden,  but  it  is  a  large  one,  about  12  feet  high  by 
13  feet  through,  and  being  in  the  rock  garden  and  too 
near  a  path  I  am  obliged  to  cut  off  large  boughs  at  times. 
It  seems  a  dreadful  thing  to  do,  but  if  done  early  in  the 
season,  just  after  the  last  flowers  have  gone,  the  vigour  of 
the  new  growths  resulting  from  air  and  space  and  an  extra 
allowance  of  sap  quite  makes  up  for  the  removals,  and  the 
increase  being  in  more  convenient  parts  of  the  tree  adds 
to  the  beauty  and  size  of  the  specimen.  In  1912  I 
realised  for  the  first  time  how  strongly  scented  the  flowers 
are  ;  a  delicious  whiff  of  bean  fields  reached  my  nose  and 
set  me  sniffing  around  to  locate  its  origin,  and  I  tracked 
it  down  to  the  Magnolia.  The  bruised  bark  emits  quite  a 
different  scent ;  you  might  shut  your  eyes  and  think 
Homocea  was  being  used  to  touch  some  injured  spot. 
170 


April  Showers 

One  day  when  sawing  off  a  rather  large  bough  to  clear 
the  legs  of  the  bush  I  was  struck  by  the  resemblance  of 
the  scent  of  the  wood  to  that  peppery  fragrance  peculiar 
to  wooden  Japanese  cabinets,  and  I  can  believe  it  possible 
that  Magnolia  wood  may  be  employed  in  their  construction. 
It  usually  happens  that  once  or  twice  during  its  flower- 
ing season  the  glorious  white  flowers  are  browned  by 
frost,  but  after  a  few  days  of  mild  weather  and  a  good 
shaking  to  knock  off  the  browned  petals,  the  show  will  be 
almost  as  good  as  before  the  calamity. 

Last  year  I  noticed  a  number  of  fruits  forming,  but 
later  on,  when  I  looked  hoping  for  seeds,  they  had  dis- 
appeared, and  I  have  never  seen  this  species  bearing  ripe 
seed  anywhere  in  England  yet.  Another  bush  we  are 
proud  of  and  that  is  generally  in  flower  in  April  is  the 
hardy  Orange  Aegle  sepiaria,  or  Citrus  trifoliata  as  we  once 
called  it.  When  covered  with  its  large,  starry  white 
blossoms  on  the  spiny,  leafless,  but  bright  green  twigs,  it 
is  a  goodly  sight.  I  grew  mine  from  pips  taken  out  of 
an  orange  given  me  by  Canon  Ellacombe,  that  had  ripened 
in  his  garden,  and  two  of  the  resultant  youngsters  planted 
side  by  side  in  the  rock  garden  have  grown  wonderfully 
quickly.  They  are  now  10  feet  high  and  9  feet  through, 
and  I  have  to  cut  them  in  severely  or  they  would  be  half 
across  the  path,  and  scratch  all  who  pass  by.  I  am 
gradually  trimming  away  the  lower  boughs,  and  hope 
some  day  to  be  able  to  walk  under  a  crop  of  Orange 
blossom  and  later  in  the  season  of  oranges  themselves. 
The  flowers  are  interesting  because  most  of  those  that 
open  first  bear  stamens  only.  Later  there  will  generally 
be  a  few  that  are  perfect  hermaphrodite  flowers,  and  the 
171 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

latest  buds  bear  only  stigmas.  Some  seasons  my  plants 
bear  no  female  flowers  until  the  pollen-bearing  ones  have 
fallen,  and  then  of  course  I  get  no  oranges.  They  fruited 
freely  in  1911  after  the  hot  summer,  and  I  have  raised  a 
nice  row  of  babes  from  the  pips.  I  should  like  to  make 
a  hedge  of  them  some  day,  as  many  of  the  spines  are  quite 
3  inches  long,  and  so  stiff  and  sharp  that  the  interlacing 
boughs  armed  freely  with  these  fierce  weapons  would  be 
worse  than  barbed  wire,  and  not  even  a  boy  could  get 
through  a  close  hedge  of  Aegle.  Little  sprays  when  cut 
off  are  useful  to  discourage  birds  and  fourfooted  beasts. 
A  faithful  old  dog,  who  always  thought  he  helped  me  to 
garden  by  lying  on  cushions  of  plants,  ruined  a  fine  speci- 
men of  the  white  Erica  carnea  until  I  insinuated  a  chip  or 
two  of  Aegle  in  among  its  growth.  Poor  old  Taffy  !  how 
he  jumped  the  next  time  he  tried  that  bed,  and  he  never 
attempted  to  lie  on  it  again.  Aegle  has  another  charm  in 
its  beautiful  autumnal  colouring  ;  in  suitable  seasons  it 
takes  on  a  brilliant  yellow,  and  the  leaves  remain  on  after 
many  other  plants  are  bare. 

Some  interesting  hybrids  were  raised  in  America  be- 
tween Aegle  and  some  edible  Oranges,  and  three  of  these 
intermediates  have  been  fairly  widely  distributed.  I  have 
got  them  here  close  to  the  New  Wall,  and  they  have 
passed  quite  unhurt  through  the  last  three  winters,  but 
though  they  have  grown  into  good  specimens,  there  has 
been  no  sign  of  flowers  yet,  still  I  hope  I  may  some  day 
eat  marmalade  made  from  these  home-grown  oranges. 
The  handsomest  of  them  is  called  Colman,  and  has  fine 
broad  leaves  that  look  much  like  those  of  an  ordinary 
sweet  Orange.  Those  on  the  younger  growths  are  not 
172 


April   Showers 


always  sufficiently  ripened  to  pass  through  the  winter 
without  scorched  tips,  but  this  kind  shows  no  signs  of  the 
deciduous  habit  of  its  hardy  parent.  Morton  is  nearest  to 
Aegle,  having  long  thorns  and  shedding  many  of  its  leaves 
during  winter  and  the  third,  named  Savage — after  a  man, 
not  its  thorns,  as  it  well  might  be — is  intermediate  between 
these  in  general  appearance.  They  have  acquired  the 
pleasant  name  of  Citrange  in  America,  and  the  fruits  are 
used  for  marmalade  and  what  is  there  called  orangeade.  I 
tried  the  Bitter  Orange  which  grows  so  well  on  the  hills 
around  Florence,  and  drops  ripe  oranges  on  to  the  snow 
in  severe  winters  up  there.  But  although  I  planted  them 
in  the  most  sheltered  position  I  could  afford,  they  lost 
their  less  ripened  growth  every  winter,  until  precious  little 
was  left  alive,  and  I  believe  the  only  survivor  is  at  its  last 
gasp  this  season,  and  so  I  must  rest  content  with  Aegle 
and  its  offspring.  I  believe  Aegle  is  much  hardier  than 
most  people  think,  for  I  have  seen  finer  plants  in  places 
where  the  winters  are  severe  than  in  Cornwall  or  Ireland, 
where  it  usually  looks  yellow  and  sickly,  and  refuses  to 
start  away  upward,  but  to  flower  well  it  needs  a  hot  sun 
and  thorough  ripening  of  the  wood.  One  Spring  it  had  a 
bad  shaking  here,  and  that  was  because  it  was  in  full 
flower  and  shooting  into  leaf-growth,  when  a  severe  frost 
on  a  Good  Friday  simply  split  the  sap-laden  shoots  and 
every  bit  of  even  two-year-old  growth  was  killed ;  and 
every  bud,  whether  of  leaf  or  flower,  was  destroyed,  and 
the  trees  looked  very  sad  for  about  a  month,  then  adven- 
titious buds  formed  on  three-year-old  wood,  and  by  the 
end  of  the  summer  the  young  growths  had  grown  out 
beyond  the  dead  wood. 

173 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Azara  microphylla  has  done  well  here  until  this  Spring, 
and  I  had  two  fine  standard  specimens,  then  on  one  gusty 
afternoon  that  in  the  rock  garden  was  blown  down,  and 
all  its  roots  snapped  beyond  cure,  and  about  half  of  the 
other  was  torn  out,  yet  no  other  tree  in  the  garden  was 
injured,  and  these  two  were  a  long  distance  from  each 
other.  I  missed  the  Vanilla-ice-cream  scent  of  its  funny 
little  blossoms  that  had  always  pervaded  the  rock  garden 
at  flowering  time,  and  called  my  attention  to  the  bloom 
which  is  so  much  hidden  under  the  leaves  that  it  needs  a 
careful  scrutiny  to  notice  it.  Xanthorhiza  apiifolia  was  not 
blown  over,  nor  ever  could  be,  for  it  is  a  lowly  shrub, 
and  makes  so  many  suckers  that  an  interlacing  mass 
soon  develops.  It  grows  close  to  the  vacant  site  of  the 
defunct  Azara,  and  I  like  its  quaint  beauty.  In  late  March 
and  on  through  April  it  bears  its  tassels  of  tiny  livid 
flowers,  but  so  freely  that  when  the  sunlight  catches  it, 
especially  the  low  beams  of  a  setting  sun,  the  whole  group 
appears  reddish-purple.  It  is  quite  an  oddity,  for  it 
belongs  to  the  great  Ranunculus  family,  and  yet  is  a 
woody  shrublet,  and  except  in  Paeonia  and  Clematis 
woody  stems  are  not  common  in  that  family.  Its  leaves 
do  not  appear  until  the  flowering  is  well  advanced,  and  they 
are  prettily  divided,  but  the  root  is  astonishingly  yellow, 
and  it  is  worth  pulling  up  some  of  the  too-widely  spread- 
ing suckers  to  see  the  golden  roots  which  give  it  its  generic 
name  of  Golden  root  in  Greek  words,  while  the  specific  ap- 
pellation is  simply  Celery-leaved  turned  into  Latin.  I  seem 
to  have  taken  you  to  the  rock  garden,  for  the  Magnolia,  the 
largest  Aegles,  and  Xanthorhiza  live  there,  and  the  poor 
overturned  Azara  used  to,  so  now  you  are  there  you  might 
174 


April  Showers 


as  well  look  at  the  large  bush  of  Golden-fruited  Ivy,  by 
the  side  of  the  Magnolia.  Just  now,  when  its  fruits  are 
turning  yellow,  and  before  the  birds  have  given  picnics  to 
all  their  friends  to  come  and  eat  them,  it  is  worth  looking 
at.  It  has  grown  so  large  and  looked  so  heavy  that  as 
you  see  I  have  short-coated  it,  trimmed  off  its  petticoats 
up  to  its  knees,  like  the  good  lady  of  nursery  rhyme  fame, 
and  this  gives  a  better  chance  in  life  to  the  Crocus  Tomasi- 
nianus  colony  of  February  beauty,  and  the  mass  of  the 
orange-coloured  Welsh  Poppy  which  glows  beneath  it  in 
May.  I  am  very  fond  of  these  fruiting  bush  Ivies,  and 
whenever  I  see  Russell's  wonderful  groups  of  them  at  the 
shows  I  long  to  be  able  to  buy  and  group  the  whole  lot  in 
the  garden.  They  are  not  separate  arboreal  varieties  but 
only  the  fruiting  branches  of  various  Ivies  cut  off  and 
struck,  and  if  really  woody  flowering  portions  are  chosen 
for  this  they  very  seldom  send  out  any  creeping  shoots, 
but  grow  into  wonderfully  shapely  bushes,  good  to  look  at 
all  the  year  round.  This  golden-fruited  form  Hedera  Helix, 
var.  chrysocarpa,  is  one  of  the  best,  and  very  pretty  when  in 
fruit.  It  has  also  been  called  Hedera  poetarum  as  it  is 
plentiful  in  Italy  and  Greece,  and  was  the  Ivy  associated 
with  the  worship  of  Bacchus,  and  much  more  suitable  for 
garlands  with  its  cheerful  golden  fruits  than  our  native 
variety  and  its  dull  black  berries. 

I  have  an  Ivy  that  was  given  to  me  with  the  reputation 
of  bearing  scarlet  berries.  No  book  mentions  it,  and  had 
it  been  offered  me  by  any  ordinary  gardener  I  should  not 
have  believed  in  its  refulgent  fruit,  even  if  I  accepted  the 
plant,  but  my  generous  friend  its  donor  knows  plants  as  well 
as  anyone,  so  I  anxiously  await  the  production  of  berries. 
175 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Now  come  and  see  the  other  Magnolias.  Having  no 
wall  for  them,  they  are  grown  as  standards  in  the  open, 
and  in  some  seasons  this  is  an  advantage,  for  exposed  to 
all  the  winds  that  blow  they  flower  later  there  than  speci- 
mens on  south  walls,  and  their  blossoms  escape  when  the 
pampered,  wall-protected  ones  are  frost-bitten.  It  is  very 
hard  to  get  a  plant  of  the  true  M.  conspicua  now,  and  I 
was  told  in  Holland  that  it  cannot  be  layered  in  the  same 
way  as  its  varieties  are.  It  should  be  pure  white,  but  even 
that  form  known  as  spedosa  which  comes  nearest  to  it,  has 
a  certain  amount  of  rose  colour  on  the  outside  petals,  and 
my  tallest  tree  is  of  this  second  best  variety.  From  the 
latter  half  of  April  and  half  through  May  it  is  generally  a 
beautiful  sight,  but  I  am  afraid  its  head  has  got  up  into 
the  wind,  and  it  will  not  go  much  higher.  The  best 
and  quickest  grower  of  the  conspicua  forms  is  that  named 
Alexandrina,  and  it  has  made  a  fine  shapely  tree  here,  and 
flowers  well,  but  is  an  early  form,  and  so  Sometimes  gets 
cut  by  frost  when  at  its  best.  The  flowers  are  rosy-pink 
on  the  outside  and  nearly  white  inside,  and  very  large. 
The  sensible  one  of  the  family  is  M.  Lennei,  a  hybrid 
between  conspicua  and  obovata  discolor,  for  it  flowers  later, 
and  is  seldom  damaged.  The  flowers  are  like  immense 
rose-coloured  Tulips,  and  after  the  main  flowering  a  con- 
stant succession  of  a  few  blooms  at  a  time  is  kept  up  all 
through  the  summer.  The  habit  of  growth  is  rather  lax, 
one  might  even  say  sprawling,  so  it  needs  careful  pruning 
if  one  wishes  to  grow  it  as  a  compact  specimen,  but  if  it 
had  abundance  of  room  allowed  it  I  expect  a  naturally- 
grown  sprawling  dwarf  would  be  very  beautiful  after  some 
years.  Mine  has  not  very  much  space  allowed  it,  for  it 
176 


Darwin  Tulips :         Mr.  Farncombe  Sanders  Suzon 


April  Showers 

has  many  neighbours,  and  grows  in  the  turf  in  a  piece  of 
garden  that  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  Lunatic  Asylum, 
for  most  of  its  occupants  are  cranks  or  eccentrics,  showing 
some  departure  from  the  normal  habits  or  appearance  of 
their  genus  or  species.  I  suppose  this  sensible  Magnolia 
is  there  as  a  keeper  now.  It  went  there  at  first  because  I 
had  an  idea  of  collecting  Japanese  plants  in  this  corner, 
but  it  and  some  Cherries  and  Bamboos  had  no  sooner  got 
established  than  the  freaks  were  put  under  their  protection, 
and  they  have  increased  in  number  sufficiently  to  demand 
a  chapter  to  themselves. 


177  M 


CHAPTER  XI 
The    Lunatic    Asylum 

IN  the  days  of  my  early  youth  a  vast  clump,  or  so  it  then 
seemed  to  me,  of  evergreens  occupied  the  space  which  now 
forms  my  home  for  demented  plants.  It  was  the  sort  of 
planting  one  sees  at  one  end  of  a  London  square.  Portugal 
Laurels  there  were,  and  the  still  more  objectionable 
Common  Laurel  ;  Laurustinus  bushes,  which  in  showery 
weather  exhale  an  odour  of  dirty  dog-kennel  and  an  even 
dirtier  dog  ;  leprously  spotted  Aucubas  and  Privet  jostled 
one  another  round  the  feet  of  two  Weymouth  Pines  and 
a  dead  Yew  covered  with  Ivy,  the  whole  dismal  crew  being 
rendered  more  awful  and  uninteresting  by  having  all  their 
attempts  to  show  any  beauty  that  might  be  inherent  in 
their  natural  manner  of  growth  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the 
garden  shears.  This  agglomeration  consequently  bore  the 
semblance  of  a  magnified  dish  of  Spinach  with  a  few  trees 
emerging  from  the  top,  where  a  giant  poached  Roc's  egg 
or  two  might  have  lain.  A  thick  wall  of  such  snubbed 
greenery  of  course  had  a  hollow  interior  of  dead  branches, 
a  playground  ever  desired  by  the  child,  and  never  per- 
mitted by  the  nurses  and  guardians,  who  foresaw  the  black 
hands  and  faces,  torn  clothes,  and  missing  buttons  that 
would  result  from  a  scramble  in  that  unknown  wilderness. 
Most  of  this  has  now  been  cleared  away,  but  the  Wey- 
178 


The  Lunatic  Asylum 

mouth  Pines  were  left,  and  also  the  tower  of  Ivy  that 
smothered  the  Yew,  a  very  fine  specimen  of  tree  Ivy, 
rather  too  much  the  shape  of  a  gigantic  button  mushroom 
perhaps,  but  a  wonderful  sight  when  in  full  flower,  and 
the  resort  of  a  crowd  of  old  pauper  wasps  and  bluebottle 
and  drone  flies  that,  at  the  end  of  the  honey  season,  live 
on  its  charity. 

Some  large  blocks  of  Kentish  rag  were  placed  to  form 
two  rocky  mounds  round  the  stems  of  the  trees,  an  irregu- 
larly shaped  bed  or  two  left,  and  the  rest  of  the  circular 
patch  where  the  evergreen  clump  had  stood  was  first 
planted  with  Crocuses  and  then  turfed  over.  The  beds 
were  to  have  held  Japanese  plants,  and  the  whole  might 
have  developed  into  a  sort  of  imitation  Japanese  garden, 
but  before  it  had  got  far  that  sort  of  thing  became 
fashionable,  and  bronze  cranes  and  stone  lanterns  met  one 
in  all  sorts  of  unsuitable  surroundings,  the  Temple  Show 
began  to  bristle  with  giant  toads,  and  pagodas,  and  jingling 
glass  bird-scarers  frightened  the  last  idea  of  reproducing  a 
page  of  Conder  right  out  of  my  head.  Then  a  home  was 
needed  for  some  trees  and  shrubs  of  abnormal  charac- 
teristics that  I  had  been  collecting,  and  the  Lunatic  Asylum 
sprang  into  existence. 

The  twisted  Hazel  was  the  first  crazy  occupant,  and  is 
perhaps  the  maddest  of  all  even  now.  It  was  first  found 
in  a  hedge  by  Lord  Ducie,  near  Tortworth,  who  moved 
it  into  the  garden,  increased  it  by  layering,  and  so  distri- 
buted it  to  a  few  friends,  my  plant  being  a  sucker  given  me 
by  Canon  Ellacombe  from  his  fine  specimen.  It  is  a  most 
remarkable  form,  for  it  never  produces  a  bit  of  straight 
wood  ;  the  stem  between  each  leaf  is  curved  as  though  one 
179 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

side  had  grown  much  faster  than  the  other,  and  alternating 
lengths  are  generally  curved  in  opposite  directions ;  fre- 
quently they  are  twisted  spirally  as  well,  so  that  the  whole 
bush  is  a  collection  of  various  curves  and  spirals,  a  tangle 
of  crooks  and  corkscrews  from  root  to  tip.  They  do  not 
straighten  out  with  age  and  thickening,  and  in  winter,  when 
leafless,  the  interlacing  twigs  are  beautiful  as  well  as  curious, 
but  when  covered  with  the  large  crumpled  leaves  it  has  a 
heavy  and  somewhat  diseased  look,  for  each  leaf  is  twisted 
or  a  little  rolled,  and  they  look  as  though  attacked  by 
leaf-rolling  caterpillars.  I  have  not  seen  catkins  or  nuts 
on  it,  and  wonder  whether  the  former  would  be  curly 
lambs'  tails,  and  the  latter  coiled  like  rams'  horns.  A 
young  plant  of  a  similarly  twisted  Hawthorn  has  now  come 
to  be  a  companion  to  the  nut,  but  has  not  had  time  to 
develop  its  mania  very  fully.  As  a  contrast  there  is  the 
fastigiate  form  of  the  common  Elder,  the  wood  of  which 
grows  as  stiff  and  straight  and  upright  as  a  grenadier.  A 
good  specimen  is  an  attractive  object,  as  the  leaves  come  in 
congested  bunches  at  intervals  on  the  straight  wood,  and 
though  the  leaflets  are  large,  they  are  closely  packed  owing 
to  the  shortness  of  the  central  leafstalk,  and  look  very  much 
more  like  those  of  a  Mulberry  than  an  Elder. 

Close  to  its  feet  grows  a  pigmy  form  of  Elder  that 
was  a  discovery  of  mine.  It  appeared  one  Spring  in  an 
old  tree  in  the  garden  as  a  dark,  heavy  mass,  and  at  first 
I  watched  it  to  see  what  strange  bird's  nest  it  was,  but  it 
constantly  increased  in  size  and  altered  its  shape  and  I 
never  saw  a  bird  near  it,  so  I  climbed  up  to  investigate 
closer,  and  found  it  was  a  Witch's  Broom  and  then  about  a 
foot  in  diameter.  When  the  leaves  fell  from  the  rest  of  the 
180 


The  Lunatic  Asylum 

tree  they  still  remained  green  on  this  mass  until  long  after 
Christmas,  and  had  not  all  fallen  when  new  growth  com- 
menced. A  year  or  two  after,  a  violent  February  gale 
blew  down  many  trees,  and  this  Elder  among  them.  I  was 
loth  to  lose  my  quaint  Witch's  Broom,  and  so  cut  it  off  with 
a  foot  of  stem  of  ordinary  Elder  wood,  and  planted  it  in 
the  Lunatic  Asylum,  treating  the  stem  as  a  root,  and  it 
has  never  shown  any  sign  of  discontent  nor  shot  up  any 
normally  strong  Elder  shoots  from  below  ground,  and  the 
masses  of  small  congested  growths  have  perfectly  retained 
their  very  original  character. 

Cuttings  struck  from  them  make  very  interesting,  round, 
bushy  plants,  and  though  they  increase  fairly  rapidly  in 
width  do  not  grow  more  than  8  to  10  inches  high  in  several 
years,  and  are  practically  evergreen,  as  the  old  leaves  last 
on  until  the  new  ones  push  them  off. 

Yet  another  Elder  has  been  certified  insane  and  admitted 
to  this  select  company.  Its  madness  consists  in  the  greater 
portion  of  the  lamina  of  the  leaf  blades  being  reduced  to  a 
mere  thread,  and  it  looks  as  though  an  army  of  locusts  or 
caterpillars  had  halted  to  dine  on  it,  but  for  all  that  has 
rather  a  soft,  ferny  look  from  a  distance. 

Two  Laburnums  have  developed  strange  habits,  and 
qualified  for  admittance  :  one  pretends  to  be  an  Oak,  and 
has,  so  far  as  it  can,  imitated  its  leaves,  and  the  name  of 
quercifolium  has  been  added  to  its  own  of  Laburnum  vulgare- 
The  flowers  are  of  a  good  rich  yellow,  but  of  course  turn 
to  ordinary  pods,  not  acorns.  The  second  is  var.  involu- 
tum,  and  has  every  leaflet  rolled  inward,  giving  the  whole 
tree  a  heavy,  congested  appearance,  and  at  close  quarters 
one  would  think  the  leaves  must  be  full  of  green  fly  to  be  so 
181 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

much  rolled  up.  I  see  a  self-sown  seedling  has  appeared  with 
the  same  curious  leaves,  so  evidently  this  form  of  madness 
is  hereditary  insanity.  A  Buckthorn,  RhamnusFrangula,var. 
asplemfolia,  has  leaves  consisting  of  little  more  than  the  mid- 
rib with  just  a  serrated  margin  of  lamina  on  either  side,  with 
a  few  irregular  projections  that  produce  a  fern-like  outline. 

One  of  the  strangest  is  a  little  Ash  that  is  quite  a  dwarf, 
and  has  crimped  leaves  which  are  nearly  black  and  beauti- 
fully polished.  It  bears  the  fine  name  of  Fraxinus  excelsior, 
var.  atrovirens  nana,  which  is  nearly  as  long  as  itself,  for 
it  is  a  very  slow  grower,  and  makes  but  a  few  inches  of 
wood  in  a  season.  It  looks  very  strange  even  in  winter,  as 
the  little  black  buds  are  set  so  closely  together. 

The  Viburnum  family  have  sent  some  inmates.  V.Opulus, 
the  Guelder  Rose,  has  a  curiously  Japanese-looking  dwarf 
variety.  It  makes  a  beautifully  rounded  bush,  covered 
with  small  leaves,  but  it  is  a  seriously  minded  lunatic,  suf- 
fering from  melancholy  madness,  for  it  never  flowers.  I 
have  a  similarly  afflicted  form  of  Philadelphus,  but  it  is  not 
so  attractive,  and  therefore  is  banished  to  a  private  home 
for  incurables  under  the  farmyard  wall.  V.  lantana  foliis 
punctatis  is  a  pleasingly  silver-spangled  form  of  the  Way- 
faring Tree,  and  almost  too  sane  for  the  company,  but  its 
eccentricity  appears  when  it  comes  to  ripening  its  seeds, 
for  then  it  cannot  make  up  its  mind  what  colour  they  shall 
be,  and  some  turn  white  while  others  remain  green,  and 
red  and  black  ones  may  all  appear  on  the  same  head.  The 
variety  called  foliis  auriis  variegatis  has  just  arrived,  and  I 
like  its  soft,  downy,  sulphur-yellow  leaves,  and  am  waiting 
to  see  what  coloured  fruit  it  will  produce. 

Ring-leaved  Laurel  and  Ring-leaved  Willow  share  the 
182 


The  Lunatic  Asylum 

same  mania  for  leaves  curled  into  rings,  but  are  very  dif- 
ferent in  appearance  otherwise.  A  charming  little  narrow- 
leaved  Laurel,  Prunus  Laurocerasus  angustifolius,  has 
been  very  sick  since  its  arrival,  but  is  settling  down  and 
growing  a  new  crop  of  its  tiny  leaves.  Several  Ivies  might 
be  moved  here,  but  are  quite  harmless  and  look  very  happy 
elsewhere,  so  Hedera  Helix,  vars.  minima  and  congesta, 
remain  in  the  rock  garden,  but  var.  Russelliana  has  gone 
here.  It  is  the  most  distinct  in  appearance  of  all  these 
curiously,  small-leaved  Ivies,  of  which  minima  is  most 
commonly  seen.  They  are  extremely  interesting  morpholo- 
gically, for  they  combine  the  two-ranked  arrangement  of 
leaves  of  the  juvenile,  creeping  condition  with  the  free 
woody  habit  of  the  fruiting  mature  state,  in  which  a 
•f  phyllotaxy  is  normal. 

These  stiff,  free  shoots,  with  the  tiny  leaves  placed  very 
closely  one  above  the  other,  and  in  two  ranks  only,  have  a 
very  striking  appearance. 

Russelliana  grows  taller  towers  of  leafy  shoots  than 
any  other  of  them,  and  makes  a  curiously  upright,  narrow 
plant  if  carefully  kept  from  falling  out  by  its  own  weight. 
As  a  contrast  I  have  planted  the  var.  obovata  close  to  it. 
This  makes  a  round-headed  bush,  and  has  remarkably  short 
and  rounded  leaves.  Where  it  touched  a  block  of  stone 
my  bush  put  out  a  climbing  shoot  which  has  now  nearly 
covered  the  rock,  and  it  is  interesting  to  have  both  the 
creeping  and  tree  form  thus  on  one  little  plant. 

Two  forms  of  Butcher's  Broom  make  another  good 

contrast ;  one  is  Ruscus  aculeatus,  var.  lanceolatus,  a  very 

elegant  form  I  get  from  Continental  nurseries,  but  little 

known  in   England.     Its   cladodes   are  very  narrow  and 

183 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

sharply  pointed  and  greyer  in  colouring  than  other  forms, 
so  that  it  is  a  light  and  graceful-looking  plant,  showing 
some  family  resemblance  to  its  not  very  distant  relations, 
the  Asparagus  family. 

R.  hypoglossum,  on  the  other  hand,  has  very  broad 
cladodes  and  fine,  long  tongues  growing  out  of  them,  really 
the  bracts  from  between  which  and  the  cladode  the  flowers 
ought  to  spring  forth.  This  plant  is  not  over  hardy  here, 
and  so  does  not  flower  often,  and  alas  !  has  never  fruited. 
Close  to  them  are  some  Docks.  Rumex  flexuosus  is  as  mad 
as  any  plant  well  can  be,  for  it  has  long,  narrow  leaves  so 
brown  in  colour  that  they  look  more  like  a  seaweed  than 
a  land  plant.  In  early  Spring  when  they  first  appear 
they  have  a  most  peculiar  effect.  The  same  plant  has 
sown  itself  rather  freely  among  the  joints  in  the  paved  walks 
of  the  Pergola  garden,  and  springing  from  between  the 
stones  looks  wonderfully  like  some  Laminaria  on  rocks 
between  tide  marks.  Later  on  they  throw  up  a  tangle  of 
slender,  straggling  flower-stems  from  which  I  suppose  the 
specific  name  is  derived,  and  then  they  look  rather  untidy, 
but  if  cut  down  a  fresh  crop  of  seaweed  soon  appears. 
R.  scutatus  with  grey-green,  arrow-shaped  leaves,  grows 
next  to  the  brown  species,  and  a  little  further  along  is  the 
Fiddle  Dock,  Rumex  pulcher,  a  rare  British  plant  from 
Romney  Marsh.  This  looks  very  much  like  an  ordinary 
weed  of  a  Dock,  unless  the  leaves  have  developed  the  curious 
narrowed  tuck-in  on  each  side  that  suggests  their  musical 
name.  Plantains  are  strongly  represented.  There  is  the 
Bush  Plantain,  Plantago  cynops,  a  very  strange,  narrow- 
leaved  slender  bush  that  no  one  would  dream  was  a  Plantain 
unless  they  saw  its  characteristic  flower  spikes.  P.  argentea, 
184 


Hardy  Palm  in  flower.     (See  p.  282.) 


The  Lunatic  Asylum 

a  silver-leaved  one,  is  a  really  pretty  thing,  and  is  also 
allowed  an  honoured  place  in  the  rock  garden,  and  P. 
nivalis,  which  is  whiter  still,  and  looks  very  miffy,  has 
been  put  into  the  moraine  for  greater  safety,  but  the  grass- 
leaved  Plantain  P.  graminifolia,  and  P.  asiatica,  a  very 
lanky  sort  of  Ribwort,  are  weird  enough  in  appearance  for 
the  Asylum.  I  have  several  times  found  variegated  forms, 
but  they  have  poor  constitutions,  and  never  live  long.  One 
gloriously  blotched  cream  and  green  P.  media  I  found  on 
Mt.  Cenis  was  thriving  grandly  till  a  bough  was  blown  off 
the  Weymouth  Pine  overhead,  and  the  end  of  it  pierced 
the  heart  of  my  piebald  treasure  and  it  rotted  away  in  a 
most  unromantic  fashion.  The  red-leaved  Plantain  is  a 
handsome  thing  when  well  grown:  a  form  of  P.  major,  it 
grows  into  a  big  plant,  and  has  leaves  as  red  as  those  of  a 
Beetroot,  but  with  a  dull  surface  to  them  quite  unlike  the 
glossy  Beet  leaves.  The  most  remarkable,  though,  are  the 
two  Rose  Plantains,  whose  flower-spikes  are  furnished  with 
leaf-like  bracts.  The  neater  of  the  two  is  a  form  of  P. 
media,  and  bears  pretty  green  rosettes  instead  of  a  flower- 
spike,  and  I  think  neither  flowers  nor  seeds.  It  must  be 
the  fifth  kind  of  Gerard's  Herbal,  of  which  he  writes: 
"The  fifth  kinde  of  Plaintains  hath  beene  a  stranger  in 
England,  and  elsewhere,  untill  the  impression  hereof. 
The  cause  why  I  say  so  is  the  want  of  consideration  of 
the  beauty  which  is  in  this  plant,  wherein  it  excelleth  all 
the  other.  Moreover  because  that  it  hath  not  bin  written 
of  or  recorded  before  this  present  time,  though  plants  of 
lesser  moment  have  beene  very  curiously  set  forth.  This 
plant  hath  leaves  like  unto  them  of  the  former,  and  more 
orderly  spread  upon  the  ground  like  a  rose,  among  which 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

rise  up  many  small  stalks  like  the  other  plaintaines,  having 
at  the  top  of  every  one  a  fine  double  Rose  altogether  unlike 
the  former,  of  an  hoary  or  rusty  greene  colour." 

Johnson  in  editing  the  second  edition  has  given  the 
plate  from  Clusius'  Rariorunt  Plantarum  Historia,  and  inter- 
polates this  remark :  "  I  take  this  set  forth  by  our  Auther 
to  be  the  same  with  that  which  Clusius  received  from 
James  Garret  the  yonger,  from  London,  and  therefore  I 
give  you  the  figure  thereof  in  this  place,  together  with  this 
addition  to  the  history  out  of  Clusius :  That  some  of  the 
heads  are  like  those  of  the  former  Rose  Plantaine  :  other 
some  are  spike  fashion,  and  some  have  a  spike  growing  as 
it  were  out  of  the  midst  of  the  Rose,  and  some  heads  are 
otherwise  shaped,  also  the  whole  plant  is  more  hoary  than 
the  common  Rose  Plantaine,"  which  contradicts  Gerard's 
statement  that  his  plant  has  at  the  top  of  every  stalk  a  fine 
double  Rose.  The  heads  that  are  "otherwise  shaped" 
are  in  Clusius'  figure  either  spiked  or  branching,  and  my 
plant  never  produces  any  but  the  fine  double  Roses,  so  I 
feel  sure  it  is  the  plant  Gerard  praised  so  highly.  It  came 
to  me  from  Glasnevin,  and  is  a  much  rarer  plant  than  the 
other  Rose  Plantain,  which  is  a  form  of  P.  major  and  the 
same  thing  as  that  figured  in  Gerard  and  Parkinson.  This 
last  produces  both  spiked  and  rose-shaped  flower  heads, 
some  of  them  attractive  but  others  very  untidy,  shapeless 
masses  of  small  leaves,  in  the  axils  of  which  a  good  number 
of  flowers  appear  and  bear  seed  freely,  so  that  young 
seedlings  are  plentiful  round  the  old  plants,  quite  unlike 
the  other,  the  P.  media  form,  which  is  quite  barren,  at  least 
here,  and  must  be  increased  by  division.  The  green  and 
yellow  Snowdrops,  both  double  and  single,  which  I  have 
186 


The  Lunatic  Asylum 

already  described,  have  a  place  in  one  of  these  beds.  The 
viviparous  form  of  Poa  alpina  still  bears  its  crop  of  young 
plants  instead  of  flowers  just  as  it  did  on  the  banks  of  the 
roadside  at  Lanslebourg.  Several  Strawberries  are  suffi- 
ciently crazy  to  come  here.  First  and  foremost  the 
Plymouth  Strawberry,  which  is  one  of  the  strangest  of 
plants,  and  has  a  wonderfully  curious  history.  It  is 
certainly  wrong  in  the  head  if  ever  a  plant  was,  for  it  is 
just  an  ordinary  wild  Strawberry  in  every  way  until  it 
blossoms,  then  every  portion  of  the  flower  is  seen  to  have 
been  changed  into  leafy  structures ;  the  petals  are  little  green 
leaves,  even  the  anthers  and  carpels  are  replaced  by  tufts  of 
tubular  leaves,  but  this  does  not  prevent  it  from  ripening 
a  kind  of  fruit  which  has  a  central  portion  of  red  flesh 
studded  with  the  tubular  leaves  instead  of  pips,  and  with 
two  ranks  of  leaflets  round  the  base  which  are  the  sepals  and 
petals.  In  this  state  it  is  a  pretty  green  and  red  object. 
It  is  first  mentioned  by  Parkinson  in  the  Paradisus  in 
1629,  and  he  gives  a  very  rough  but  quite  recognisable 
figure  of  it.  His  description  of  it  is  so  exact  it  is  worth 
quoting.  He  writes  :  "  One  Strawberry  more  I  promised 
to  shew  you,  which  although  it  be  a  wilde  kinde,  and  of  no 
use  for  meate,  yet  I  would  not  let  this  discourse  passe 
without  giving  you  the  knowledge  of  it.  It  is  in  leafe 
much  like  unto  the  ordinary,  but  differeth  in  that  the 
flower,  if  it  have  any,  is  greene,  or  rather  it  beareth  a 
small  head  of  greene  leaves,  many  set  thicke  together  like 
unto  a  double  ruffe,  in  the  midst  whereof  standeth  the  fruit, 
which  when  it  is  ripe,  sheweth  to  be  soft  and  somewhat 
reddish,  like  unto  a  Strawberry,  but  with  many  small 
harmlesse  prickles  on  them,  which  may  be  eaten  and 
187 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

chewed  in  the  mouth  without  any  maner  of  offence,  and 
is  somewhat  pleasant  like  a  Strawberry:  it  is  no  great 
bearer,  but  those  it  doth  beare,  are  set  at  the  toppes  of  the 
stalks  close  together  pleasant  to  behold,  and  fit  for  a 
gentlewoman  to  weare  on  her  arme  etc  as  a  raritie  instead 
of  a  flower."  Johnson  adds  a  paragraph  about  it  in  the 
1633  edition  of  Gerard,  and  tells  us  its  history  thus  :  "  Mr 
John  Tradescant  hath  told  me  that  he  was  the  first  that 
tooke  notice  of  this  Strawberry,  and  that  in  a  woman's 
garden  at  Plimouth,  whose  daughter  had  gathered  and  set 
the  roots  in  her  garden  in  stead  of  the  common  Straw-berry  : 
but  she  finding  the  fruit  not  to  answer  her  expectation, 
intended  to  throw  it  away :  which  labour  he  spared  her, 
in  taking  it  and  bestowing  it  among  the  lovers  of  such 
varieties,  in  whose  gardens  it  is  yet  preserved."  Then 
Marret  in  his  Pinax  published  in  1667,  declares  he  found 
it  growing  in  woods  in  Hyde  Park  and  Hampstead.  Ray 
mentions  that  it  was  in  cultivation  in  the  Cambridge 
Garden  for  many  years,  and  then  it  disappeared  so  entirely 
that  Dr.  Hogg,  as  quoted  by  Dr.  Masters,  wrote  of  it  as  a 
"  botanical  Dodo,"  saying  that  "  though  a  century  and  a 
half  have  passed  since  there  was  any  evidence  of  its  exis- 
tence, it  serves  still  as  an  illustration  for  students  in 
morphology  of  one  of  those  strange  abnormal  structures 
with  which  the  vegetable  kingdom  abounds."  In  1766 
M.  Duchesne  informed  the  world  of  the  generosity  of 
M.  Monti  of  Bologna,  who  divided  with  him  a  dried 
specimen  in  his  herbarium.  Some  time  after  the  publi- 
cation of  his  Vegetable  Teratology,  from  which  I  have  quoted 
these  facts,  Dr.  Masters  came  across  his  botanical  Dodo 
alive  and  happy  in  Canon  Ellacombe's  garden,  and  carried 
188 


The  Lunatic  Asylum 

off  plants  of  it  to  grow  in  his  own.  From  these  came  my 
original  stock,  for  Dr.  Masters  gave  me  some  plants  and 
at  the  same  time  told  me  the  account  of  his  re-discovering 
them.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  sending  some  to  Cambridge 
this  year,  for  they  had  disappeared  there,  and  I  am  quite 
willing  to  send  others  to  Plymouth  if  the  descendants  of 
that  good  woman's  daughter  want  them. 

The  double-flowered  Strawberry  is  really  pretty  ;  the 
first  flowers  of  the  season  are  like  little  white  Roses,  but 
later  on  they  come  only  semi-double,  and  these  turn  into 
small  fruits.  The  one-leaved  Strawberry  is  not  often  seen. 
It  is  only  a  variety  of  the  wild  Fargaria  vesca,  and  known 
as  var.  monophylla.  Now  and  then  the  normal  number 
of  three  leaflets  are  produced  on  a  leaf  stalk,  but  as  a  rule 
only  the  central  and  terminal  one  is  developed,  so  that  the 
plant  hardly  looks  like  a  Strawberry  until  it  flowers  and 
fruits.  This  variety  has  appeared  in  several  places ;  Linnaeus 
found  it  in  his  travels  in  Lapland,  it  is  to  be  seen  in  a 
picture  by  Holbein  now  at  Munich,  and  Duchesne,  the 
author  of  the  Historic  des  Fraisiers,  raised  it  from  seed  of 
the  wild  Strawberry.  A  handsomely  variegated  Strawberry 
which  bears  large  white  fruits  is  the  last  of  that  family  in 
this  plot  of  ground,  for  I  have  lost  a  white-fruited  Alpine 
form  that  ought  to  be  here. 

I  cannot  describe  all  my  maniacs  so  fully  as  these,  and 
will  only  mention  a  white-flowered  Ajuga  reptans,  and  that 
strange  form  A.  metallica  crispa  a  Hen-and-chicken  form 
of  the  common  Daisy,  the  Green  Primrose,  Parsley-leaved 
Anemone  japonica,  the  dwarf  form  of  Daphne  Laureola 
known  as  Philippiana,  and  a  form  of  Campanula  lactiflora, 
that  instead  of  growing  6  feet  is  content  with  one,  and  has 
189 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

narrow  lanceolate  leaves  from  its  childhood  instead  of  the 
ample  ovate  leaves  of  its  brother  seedlings,  and  constantly 
correlated  with  these  peculiarities  is  a  curious  dialysis  of 
the  coralla  similar  to  that  seen  in  Campanula  rotundifolia, 
var.  soldanalliflora,  in  which  the  bell  is  divided  into  five 
narrow  petals.  I  can  always  recognise  a  C.  ladiflora  that 
inherits  these  oddities  even  when  its  first  leaves  appear 
above  the  cotyledons,  by  their  singularly  narrow  outline. 

Does  my  Lunatic  Asylum  appeal  to  you  or  appal  you  ? 
I  cannot  tear  some  visitors  away  from  it,  and  others  who 
do  not  care  about  the  demented  inmates  are  pleased  with 
the  effect  of  the  surroundings.  When  the  Cherries  and 
Magnolias  are  out,  and  later  when  some  standard  Wistarias, 
both  sinensis  and  multijuga,  in  both  lilac  and  white 
varieties,  and  the  white  brachybotrys  are  in  flower,  I  some- 
times think  it  looks  rather  like  a  Japanese  garden  after  all. 


190 


CHAPTER   XII 

Tom  Tiddler's  Ground 

I  HAVE  never  felt  the  disgust  for  variegated  foliage  evinced 
by  so  many  good  gardeners,  and  in  many  cases  I  warmly 
admire  it.  For  instance  Iris  pallida,  Astrantia  major  (as 
seen  at  Bitton,  for  it  does  little  more  than  just  exist  here), 
Acer  Negundo,  and  A.  calif ornica  aurea,  Hypericum  Mose- 
rianum  tricolor  and  Polemonium  coeruleum  in  their  widely 
different  lines  of  variegation  are  to  my  idea  delightfully 
delicate  in  colour  harmonies.  The  cream  and  soft  yellow 
alternating  with  grey-green  in  Iris  pallida,  and  forming 
endless  intermediate  shades  of  colour  where  one  overlays 
the  other,  make  a  leaf  worth  examining  closely,  while  a 
good  clump  of  it  is  a  strikingly  beautiful  thing  among  other 
Iris  foliage. 

Towards  the  end  of  summer,  and  before  the  autumnal 
tints  begin  to  brighten  them  up,  most  of  our  shrubs  and 
trees  become  very  heavy  in  their  tone  of  green,  and  we 
miss  the  contrasting  shades  of  Spring  vegetation.  Then  the 
value  of  a  Silver  Elm  or  Acer  Negundo,  the  Ghost  Tree,  and 
of  golden-leaved  shrubs  is  apparent,  and  even  in  the  borders 
variegated  herbaceous  plants  seen  in  fine  specimens  and 
bold  groups  give  relief  from  the  uniformly  heavy  greens  of 
late  summer  and  the  glaring  brilliancy  of  crowded  flowers. 
But  even  if  a  plant  is  not  improved  in  beauty  by  varie- 
191 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

gation,  there  are  the  scientific  sides  of  the  question,  and 
how  very  little  we  know  of  the  causes  of  variegation,  or 
the  answers  to  such  questions  as,  "  Why  should  golden 
forms  do  best  in  full  sunlight  and  most  silver  ones  in 
shade  ?  Why  does  variegation  sometimes  appear  on  one 
half  of  a  stem  only,  and  is  it  generally  true  that  the  varie- 
gation in  such  cases  occurs  in  a  self-sown  plant  towards 
the  magnetic  north  as  has  been  solemnly  averred  ?  Is  it 
a  disease,  and  if  so  is  it  communicable  ?  "  Mr.  Wollaston 
of  Chislehurst,  of  fern-growing  fame,  believed  it  was,  and 
used  to  associate  plants  of  which  he  desired  to  obtain  varie- 
gated forms  with  the  piebald  or  skewbald  representatives 
of  others  more  plastic  than  they,  and  showed  many  results 
of  what  those  who  deprecate  variegation  would  call  cor- 
ruption of  good  greenery  by  evil  company. 

I  have  given  a  hearty  welcome  to  all  forms  that  have 
come  my  way.  Some  few  are  only  fit  for  the  Lunatic 
Asylum,  but  I  have  for  the  last  three  years  been  trying  to 
group  the  really  beautiful  forms  of  variegated  plants  in  an 
irregularly-shaped  parcel  of  ground  that  was  available  for 
planting  after  the  downfall  of  sundry  Horse-chestnuts  and 
Portugal  Laurels.  I  thought  it  might  be  effective  as  well 
as  interesting  to  group  them  according  to  the  nature  and 
colour  of  their  variegation,  and  so  it  began  with  a  planting 
of  purple-leaved  things  at  one  end  and  golden  forms  at  the 
other,  and  a  witty  friend  christened  it  Sennacherib's  corner. 
But  since  then  much  silver  has  been  added,  in  grey-leaved 
things  at  one  corner  and  as  an  edging  stretching  both 
ways  from  it  and  reaching  on  one  side  to  the  commence- 
ment of  the  golden  plants,  and  a  central  planting  of  white 
variegation  forms  a  wedge-shaped  group  with  the  narrow 
192 


Darwin  Tulips  :         Euterpe 


Frzins  Hals 


Tom  Tiddler's  Ground 

end  of  the  wedge  running  between  the  purple  and  gold 
groups.  As  purple-leaved  plants  are  not  very  numerous, 
and  many  of  them  lose  their  depth  of  colouring  somewhat 
in  late  summer,  the  general  effect  is  rather  of  gold  and 
silver,  and  therefore  Tom  Tiddler's  ground  is  now  a  fitter 
name.  Some  of  the  colour  effects  persist  throughout  the 
seasons,  especially  in  the  grey  corner  where  Centaurea 
Clementei,  perhaps  the  most  silvery  of  all  white-leaved  things, 
has  come  through  the  last  two  winters  with  a  brave  show. 
The  leaves  of  Cineraria  maritima,  though  dulled  by  damp, 
soon  dry  up  and  look  white  anfd  fresh  in  Spring  sunshine. 
Santolina  incana  is  best  cut  down  annually,  but  I  like  to 
leave  a  few  of  the  plants  unshorn  till  the  scissor-snubbed 
ones  have  reclothed  themselves,  to  carry  on  the  grey  tradi- 
tion of  their  clump.  The  powdered  stems  of  Rubus  tibetanus 
and  Rosa  Willmottiae  rise  up  among  the  lowlier  plants, 
and  are  very  effective  in  Winter  and  early  Spring,  but 
Rubus  biflorus  is  the  most  startlingly  white-stemmed  of  all, 
and  I  am  frequently  asked  why  I  have  whitewashed  it.  It 
puts  the  others  so  completely  out  of  court  that  I  have  it 
among  the  variegated  silver  plants  rather  than  the  greys, 
and  there,  when  most  of  its  neighbours  are  leafless,  it  stands 
out  in  its  coat  of  paint.  Except  for  Osmanthus  ilicifolius 
fol.  purpureis  and  some  dark-leaved  Antirrhinums  the 
purple  end  retires  from  business  in  Winter.  Cornus 
Spaethii  in  the  golden  end  has  bright  red  bark  to  its  young 
shoots,  but  Golden  Thyme,  and  a  grass  or  two,  with  the 
golden  Juniperus  sinensis,  and  the  old,  old  golden  Fever- 
few, keep  up  the  reputation  of  the  golden  corner,  while 
Ajuga  reptans  fol.  var.,  white-flowered  Lamium  maculatum, 
Barbarea  vulgaris,  and  this  last  year  a  fine  specimen  of  Jack- 
I93  N 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

by-the- Hedge  (Sisymbrium  Alliaria),  half  of  whose  leaves 
were  white,  from  a  neighbouring  hedge,  perform  the  same 
good  work  in  the  central  silver  portion.  But  as  the  best 
Spring  effect  is  to  be  seen  when  the  Tulips  are  in  flower,  it 
is  then  that  I  shall  lead  you  forth  to  see  Tom  Tiddler's 
ground.  We  will  approach  it  over  the  old  bowling  green 
lawn,  and  so  arrive  at  the  grey  corner  where  Artemisia 
Halleri,  bicolor,  and  a  good  form  of  Absynthium  I  found 
plentiful  at  Lanslebourg  are  all  showing  up  in  the  front. 
A.  borealis,  a  lovely  lacy  and  silvery  edition  of  Old 
Man  which  might  well  be  called  Old  Lady,  backs  a 
patch  of  the  brilliantly  white  A.  stelleriana,  which  is 
allowed  to  sprawl  on  to  the  gravel  walk,  ^thiopappus 
or  Centaurea  pulcherrima  is  newly  arisen,  and  also  won- 
derfully white.  The  Centaurea,  Cineraria,  and  Santolina 
before  mentioned  form  higher  mounds  behind,  and  Cer- 
astium  tomentosum  makes  a  mat  before  the  entrance, 
for,  as  the  ground  was  too  wide  to  reach  over  com- 
fortably, I  ran  an  irregularly  curved  line  of  stepping- 
stones  across  it  to  give  access  to  the  central  portions, 
and  they  start  from  among  the  Cerastium,  and  various 
dwarf  plants  are  planted  between  the  stones.  Ajuga 
reptans  with  silver  leaves  is  very  effective  used  thus. 
The  tall,  silvery-grey  leaves  of  two  giant  Onions  rise  up 
among  the  silver  plants  ;  Allium  Rosenbachianum  has  the 
more  gracefully  recurved  ones,  but  those  of  A.  Babingtonii 
are  taller.  Both  plants  send  up  large  round  heads  of 
mauve  flowers  ;  those  of  Rosenbach's  are  very  handsome 
and  come  in  May,  but  Babington's  not  till  July,  and 
they  think  nothing  of  reaching  a  height  of  six  feet,  but 
quite  half  the  buds  are  transformed  into  bulbils,  and 
194 


Tom  Tiddler's  Ground 

unless  one  wishes  for  a  large  crop  of  this  rare  British 
plant,  the  heads  must  be  cut  off  before  these  bulbs  drop 
and  plant  themselves.  Among  large  subjects  Atriplex 
Halimus  has  made  a  big  bush  of  itself  in  spite  of  constant 
applications  of  my  secateurs,  and  now  is  very  silvery  and 
charming,  so  much  so  that  one  wonders  why  it  is  so 
seldom  to  be  seen  except  on  gardens  on  sea  fronts. 
Eucalyptus  Gunnii,  I  believe  the  true  thing  and  therefore 
the  hardiest  of  all,  is  shooting  up  above  everybody  else, 
and  these  with  the  Rose  and  Bramble  and  a  young  Picea 
pungens  glauca  form  the  tall  centre  of  the  grey  corner  ; 
the  lawn  front  contains  other  Artemisias,  Salvia  argentea 
with  its  immense  leaves  like  grey  plush,  Anthemis  Cupa- 
nanii,  a  plant  too  little  known,  for  besides  feathery  grey 
leaves  it  has  white  daisies  that  are  singularly  well  shaped 
and  brilliant.  Suaeda  fruticosa  and  Artemisia  maritima 
from  the  Norfolk  coast  are  here,  but  Diotis  maritima 
refuses  their  company,  and  will  only  live  in  the  rock 
garden.  Onopordon  bracteatum  comes  for  a  short  stay, 
and  flowers  and  dies  when  at  its  best,  in  its  silly  biennial 
way.  Anemone  Pulsatilla  does  well  here,  and  thrusts  up 
fluffy,  lilac  flowers  with  Chinchilla  fur  boas  round  their 
necks  among  the  steely  blue-grey  leaves  of  Cerinthe  alpina. 
Seseli  gummiferum,  a  strange,  stiff -habited,  glaucous,  umbel- 
liferous biennial,  is  very  effective  just  before  it  starts 
flowering,  but  Festuca  glauca,  the  grass  with  imitation 
hoar  frost  eternally  on  its  leaves,  is  the  best  of  the 
whole  lot,  and  finishes  the  grey  plants  by  running  as  a 
wedge  into  the  beginning  of  the  golden  things.  Golden 
Thyme  is  the  first  plant  in  the  golden  edging,  and 
then  comes  a  fine  striped  form  of  Foxtail  Grass  that 
'95 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

is  very  brilliant  in  its  young  growth,  and  remains  good 
till  late  in  summer  if  the  flowering  stalks  are  kept  pulled 
out.  Golden  Ling,  a  Viola  cornuta  with  white  flowers 
and  golden  leaves,  the  Feverfew  (Pyrethrum  Parthenium), 
the  beautiful,  golden-leaved  Veronica  Teucrium  that  origi- 
nated in  Captain  Pinwill's  garden,  and  a  corner  clump 
of  Cornus  Spaethii  are  the  main  features  of  the  front 
rank.  Laburnum,  Lilac,  Mountain  Ash,  Robinia  Pseud- 
acacia,  Ptelia  trifoliata,  Ribes  sanguineum,  the  Common 
and  the  Cut-leaved  Elders,  have  all  provided  golden- 
leaved  forms,  and  are  represented  here.  Acer  californica 
aurea  is  perhaps  the  most  brilliantly  yellow  of  all,  though 
Sambucus  racemosa  plumosa  aurea,  runs  it  very  close, 
but  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  its  pre-Linnean  length  of 
name.  The  Ptelea  does  not  come  out  golden,  but  the 
leaves  become  spangled  and  afterwards  almost  suffused 
with  gold  as  they  age,  and  therefore  it  stands  out  as 
the  best  when  the  others  are  losing  their  brilliancy.  The 
Laburnum's  gold  vanishes  as  soon  as  that  of  a  spend- 
thrift, while  the  Ribes  is  a  good  colour  throughout  the 
season.  I  have  derived  great  pleasure  from  this  golden 
group,  and  am  trying  to  extend  their  effect  by  planting 
more  golden  forms  in  a  line  with  it  to  carry  the  colour 
on  until  the  Bamboos  and  Yews  by  the  river  are  reached. 
Two  Alders  have  come  into  this,  and  Alnus  incana  aurea 
is  a  very  beautiful  thing,  the  colour  of  the  winter  bark 
is  so  brilliant,  like  red  coral.  Golden  Acer  campestre 
also  pleased  me  much  this  year.  But  to  come  back  to 
Tom  Tiddler's  ground  and  the  undergrowth  of  the  golden 
grove,  there  is  Creeping  Jenny  and  Meadow  Sweet,  pure 
gold  both  of  them,  and  another  form  of  the  latter  with 
196 


Tom  Tiddler's  Ground 

gold  blotches.  Thalictrum  glaucum  tl  Illuminator  "  is  very 
effective  when  in  young  growth,  but  afterwards  turns 
glaucous,  though  if  beheaded  it  soon  springs  up  golden 
again.  Iris  Pseud-acorus,  with  striped  leaves,  and  forms 
of  /.  versicolor  and  I.  spuria,  with  the  young  growth  bril- 
liantly yellow,  grow  up  among  a  wonderful  grass  I  first 
saw  in  the  Birmingham  Botanic  Garden,  instantly  asked 
for,  and  shortly  after  gratefully  received.  I  have  not  found 
a  name  for  it  yet,  but  it  is  the  lightest,  clearest  yellow 
of  any  leaf  I  know,  and  seeds  freely,  and  comes  true 
from  seed — a  veritable  treasure.  I  planted  a  clump  of 
the  Early  Tulip,  Yellow  Prince,  with  golden  variegated 
leaves,  and  they  looked  so  well  when  in  flower  that 
Daffodils  were  introduced  to  help  the  early  golden  glow, 
and  yellow  Tulips  to  carry  it  on.  Of  Daffodils,  Olympia, 
Duke  of  Bedford,  Hamlet,  Lord  Roberts,  Butterfly — a 
pretty  light  double — Whitewell,  and  Henry  Irving  have 
all  done  well,  and  join  on  to  the  planting  of  cooler- 
coloured  ones  that  I  have  mentioned  in  an  earlier  chapter. 
But  the  supreme  moment  is  reached  when  the  late  Tulips 
are  out.  Yellow  Rose,  the  fine  old  double,  is  at  the 
corner  by  the  Cornus,  and  if  a  few  short  twiggy  branches 
are  put  among  the  buds  as  they  rise,  they  get  enough 
support,  and  the  full-blown  flowers  hang  gracefully  from 
among  them  instead  of  fainting  on  to  the  walk.  Ellen 
Willmott,  Solfatare,  and  Mrs.  Moon  are  good  tall  yellows, 
and  are  planted  in  the  middle  distance.  Ixioides,  with 
its  rich  black  base,  is  very  effective,  and  a  great  favourite 
of  mine.  Moonlight  is  the  best  pale  yellow,  a  lovely 
colour,  and  in  front  of  the  others  shows  up  well.  Ingles- 
combe  Yellow,  Jaune  d'ceuf, Golden  Spire,  Primrose  Beauty, 
197 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

and  other  yellow  Tulips  are  there,  but  those  I  have 
named  I  consider  the  best.  Starting  at  the  grey  corner, 
I  planted  pale  lavender-coloured  Darwin  Tulips,  working 
into  lilac  and  mauve  sorts,  and  then  carried  them  down 
either  side  of  the  stepping-stones  in  small  patches  of 
eight  or  a  dozen,  dotted  here  and  there  among  the 
variegated  plants,  and  as  they  approach  the  purple-leaved 
things  at  the  end  the  shades  of  the  Tulips  grow  darker, 
until  we  end  with  the  deepest  purple  ones  we  can  find. 
Erguste,  Bleu  Aimable,  Rev.  H.  Ewbank  are  in  fairly 
large  clumps  to  represent  the  lilac  shades,  and  then 
come  Franz  Hals,  Greuze,  The  Bishop,  Vespuccio,  and 
Velvet  King,  which  are  fine  rich  purples.  Purple  Per- 
fection, Fra  Angelico,  Grand  Monarque  are  rather  deeper, 
and  of  redder  or  browner  shades,  and  Faust  is  the  finest 
and  darkest  of  all.  I  have  not  planted  anything  nearer 
black  in  this  bed,  such  as  Sultan,  Zulu,  and  La  Noire, 
as  they  would  not  be  effective  against  the  Prunus  ceras- 
ifera  atropurpurea,  Purple  Barberry,  and  Hazel  that  form 
the  background.  The  most  beautiful  of  all  purple-leaved 
things  is  certainly  the  Purple-leaved  Peach.  It  keeps 
its  colour  to  the  end,  and  constantly  sends  out  young 
crimson  growths  through  the  whole  summer.  Its  flowers 
are  as  rosy  and  large  as  those  of  the  Almond,  and  in 
1911  it  bore  a  crop  of  hard,  purple  Peaches. 

We  sowed  some  of  their  stones  and  got  a  purple-leaved 
plant  from  each  of  them.  A  good  specimen  occupies  the 
post  of  honour  in  the  foreground  here  where  the  shaded 
lines  of  Tulips  end,  and  the  newer  form  of  purple  Plum  (I 
cannot  write  its  long  but  correct  Latin  name  again)  which 
I  bought  as  Pissardii  nigra  is  certainly  very  deep  in  colour. 
198 


Tom  Tiddler's  Ground 

The  purple  Sloe  looks  rather  dingy  beside  these  two, 
and  the  purple  Euonymus  europaeus  atropurpureus  is  best 
in  its  autumn  coloration,  and  so  far  I  have  been  rather 
disappointed  with  a  purple  Acer  campestre  that  has  been  so 
only  in  name.  The  central  gathering  of  silver  variegation 
is  becoming  very  interesting  to  me  as  the  collection  grows, 
and  I  can  begin  to  reckon  what  main  lines  variegation 
follows.  It  seems  that  but  few  plants  have  leaves  naturally 
and  always  marked  with  white  in  their  typical  form.  Of 
course  there  are  the  Lungworts,  Lamium  maculatum,  and 
the  well-known  Milk  Thistle,  and  I  have  here,  too,  a  smaller 
Thistle  with  white  markings  which  are  evidently  permanently 
specific  characters.  It  was  sent  to  me  by  a  good  friend 
who  found  it  wild  in  Italy,  and  kindly  remembered  my 
collection  of  such  things.  It  is  only  an  annual,  but  sows 
itself  most  obligingly,  and  its  autumn  rosettes  are  very 
charming.  I  have  been  trying  to  think  of  other  hardy 
plants  with  a  regular  design  of  white  or  grey  marks  on 
their  leaves  as  usual  specific  characters,  and  either  my 
memory  is  bad  or  their  number  is  small.  I  recall  Red 
Clover,  several  Buttercups,  all  Crocuses,  except  such  as 
have  struck  out  a  line  for  themselves,  and  I  hope  you  will 
believe  me  when  I  say  that  until  I  had  written  that  last 
sentence  I  was  quite  unconscious  of  its  punning  sense,  but 
leave  it  as  it  is  so  absolutely  true,  for  the  two  species  with 
semi-cylindrical  leaves,  Crocus  carpetanus  and  C.  nevadensis, 
and  the  four- winged  leaf  of  Scharojanii  have  dispensed  with 
the  usual  conspicuous  white  line  of  the  rest  of  the  family. 
Scolymus  hispanicus,  Echium  and  Cerinthe  in  several 
species  have  small,  white  spots.  Cyclamen  leaves,  except 
those  of  true  Coum,  vary  from  small  spots  to  zones  of  great 
199 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

beauty,  Richardia  albo-maculata,  which  is  quite  hardy  here 
in  warm  corners,  but  once  caused  my  herbaceous  exhibit 
to  be  disqualified  at  a  local  show,  has  along  with  its  near 
relations  the  many  white  transparencies  on  the  leaves  that 
provide  its  specific  name.  It  has  been  said  that  no  plain 
green  form  is  known  of  Pachysandra  terminalis,  that  strange 
Euphorbiaceous  plant  from  Japan.  So  many  of  the  older 
introductions  from  that  country  were  garden  forms,  as 
witness  Anemone  japonica,  first  known  as  a  semi-double 
red  form,  then  by  the  white,  and  it  is  only  lately  that  the 
var.  hupehensis  has  arrived,  which  is  clearly  the  wild  rose- 
coloured  form.  Again,  Rosa  rugosa,  and  from  China  the 
Chrysanthemum,  all  came  to  us  first  in  garden  forms,  so 
that  I  suspect  Pachysandra  has  been  treated  in  the  same 
way,  for  I  have  lately  seen  the  green  form  in  the  Cambridge 
Botanic  Garden,  and  hope  it  will  soon  be  in  this  one  too. 
And  the  figure  in  Somoku-Dzuzetsu,  the  Sowerby  of  Japan, 
shows  no  trace  of  variegation.  The  variegated  form  we 
now  possess  is  an  attractive  plant  with  narrow  white 
margins  to  its  leaves.  In  greenhouse  and  stove  natural 
marbling  is  common  enough,  and  I  need  not  make  lists  of 
Begonias,  Caladiums,  &c. 

Variegated  leaved  shrubs  are  numerous,  and  cannot  all 
be  squeezed  into  Tom's  silver  mine.  Cornus  varieties 
number  three,  and  the  best  is  C.  siUrica  elegantissima,  a 
free  grower  with  large  leaves,  the  major  portion  of  each 
being  white.  C.  brachypoda  variegata  is  slow  to  grow  tall  ; 
most  likely  it  starts  life  as  a  layered  shoot,  and  like  all  such 
is  loth  to  shoot  up  strongly,  but  a  sharp  knife  and  a  hard 
heart  and  patience  are  training  my  specimen  in  the  path 
of  uprightness — and  it  begins  to  show  the  whorled  char- 
200 


Eremurus  Ehvesianus.     (See  p.  283.) 


Tom  Tiddler's  Ground 

acter  of  branching,  a  dumb-waiter  effect,  that  this  species 
is  noted  for.  C.  Mas  aureus  elegans  is  very  soft  and  pretty, 
with  a  creamy-white  variegation.  Elegans  may  pass,  but 
aureus  is  an  untruthful  epithet  ;  it  is  weaker  in  golden 
glow  than  an  Australian  sovereign,  and  so  has  been  placed 
among  the  silver  plants.  Weigela  rosea  and  Philadelphus 
coronaria  have  good  silver  forms.  The  variegated  Ruta 
graveolens,  if  kept  sheared  over  twice  in  the  season,  makes 
a  wonderfully  beautiful,  hoary-headed  specimen,  looking 
more  like  a  plant  in  full  flower  than  mere  variegation  when 
seen  from  a  distance.  Euonymus  europaeus  aucubaefolius 
has  up  to  the  present  only  come  out  in  spots  towards  the 
end  of  summer,  but  an  older  specimen  may  be  more  effec- 
tive earlier.  Of  herbaceous  plants  also  only  a  few  of  the 
best  forms  of  variegation  have  been  planted  here  as  yet. 
Scrophularia  aquatica  is  one  of  the  most  effective,  broadly 
blotched  with  cream  colour  and  good  at  most  times 
of  the  year.  Mentha  rotundifolia,  fol.  var.,  requires  look- 
ing after.  It  runs  and  spreads  with  marvellous  rapidity, 
and  is  inclined  to  go  back  green,  but  makes  up  for 
it  by  giving  a  large  number  of  wholly  white  shoots  ;  so  it 
is  wise  to  keep  on  replanting  from  the  most  variegated 
portions.  Acorus  Calamus  has  a  very  effective  variegated 
form,  with  a  certain  amount  of  burnt  sienna  and  rich  red 
about  the  bases  of  the  leaves.  It  is  best  in  a  bog,  but 
consents  to  live  in  a  not  too  dry  border.  Artemisia  vulgaris 
[the  Mugwort],  Lychnis  dioica,  a  Chrysanthemum,  several 
Funkias,  Crown  Imperial,  and  Sweet  Violet  all  have  good 
green  and  white  forms,  and  grasses  provide  Phalaris 
arundinacea  or  Gardeners'  Garters,  but  in  the  better  form 
with  the  centre  of  each  leaf  broadly  white.  Arrhenatherum 

201 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

bulbosum  is  a  very  good  variegated  grass,  but  the  whitest 
and  most  effective  of  all  dwarf  ones  is  Molinia  coerulea, 
fol.  var.;  it  grows  near  the  stepping-stones  with  Funkia 
undulata  (also  fol.  var.)  for  a  neighbour,  and  the  two  are 
about  as  pretty  as  any  variegated  plants  I  know.  In 
earliest  Spring  I  get  an  effect  of  blue  among  these  silver 
things  from  Hepaticas,  Pulmonaria  Mawson's  variety, 
Scilla  bifolia,  Chionodoxa  sardensis,  and  a  few  other  things 
of  lowly  habits,  and  later  in  the  season  these  are  replaced 
by  Violas,  especially  forms  of  V.  gracilis,  and  deep  purple 
bedding  Violas,  as  of  course  the  blue  groundwork  has  to 
disappear  before  the  lilac  Tulips  claim  the  field.  To  take 
their  places  later  still  there  are  other  flowering  plants 
hiding  among  them,  but  that  is  another  story,  or  rather 
a  chapter  of  another  volume,  for  this  book  must  end  with 
the  commencement  of  Summer. 


202 


CHAPTER  XIII 
Anemones 

THERE  is  a  charm  in  the  simple  form  of  a  single  Anemone 
that  goes  straight  to  my  heart.  The  central  boss  of 
carpels,  and  the  surrounding  ring  so  rich  in  innumerable 
stamens,  start  the  flower  on  pleasantly  concentric  curves  ; 
then  the  segments  of  the  coloured  floral  whorl  are 
generally  so  ample  and  delightfully  hollowed  that  their 
outlines  are  always  bold  and  good. 

It  is  botanically  correct  to  deny  petals  to  an  Anemone, 
but  I  never  feel  quite  happy  about  considering  all  the 
coloured  segments  as  sepals,  as  it  often  happens  in  certain 
species  that  the  outer  ones  have  a  slightly  more  woolly 
texture,  especially  on  the  outer  side,  and  the  inner  are 
rather  more  perfect  in  shape  and  coloration,  and  look 
more  like  petals.  On  the  other  hand,  I  must  own  that 
when  doubling  occurs  by  the  anthers  becoming  petaloid 
they  as  a  rule  take  a  narrow  lanceolate  form  quite  different 
from  the  ample  coloured  sepals. 

It  is  rather  curious  that  this  particular  form  of  double 
flower  should  bear  the  name  of  "  Anemone-flowered,"  and 
be  used  for  any  family  in  which  there  are  double  flowers 
with  a  ring  of  large  regular  outside  segments,  and  the 
central  portion  is  filled  with  quilled  or  narrow  rays. 
The  term  "  Anemone-flowered  "  surely  ought  to  bring  to 
203 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

one's  mind  the  original  simply  beautiful  design  of  the  single 
Wind  flowers  and  not  the  double  freaks  of  garden  origin. 

I  lately  saw  some  huge  China  Asters  with  an  outside 
fringe  of  ray  florets  of  extra  length  and  narrowness,  and 
the  disc  a  mass  of  large  quilled  florets.  Anything  more 
unlike  an  ordinary  Anemone  could  hardly  be  imagined,  yet 
everyone  who  saw  them  at  once  dubbed  them  "Anemone- 
flowered,"  having  in  mind  the  race  of  Chrysanthemums  so 
called,  I  suppose. 

Analogous  instances  may  be  noticed  in  the  way  fully 
doubled  flowers  are  called  Rose-flowered,  and  thus  when 
a  double  Rose  is  more  than  usually  rich  in  petals  it  has  to 
borrow  an  epithet  from  the  Cabbage,  and  the  most  solid  of 
Cabbages  from  a  drumhead.  Let  us  hope  that  the  limit 
has  been  reached  there. 

Certain  double-flowered  Anemones  are  by  no  means 
to  be  despised  :  that  known  as  Chapeau  de  Cardinal,  a  pure 
scarlet  A.  coronaria  with  the  regular  centre  so  well  be- 
loved by  the  old  Dutch  painters,  is  a  very  glorious  thing. 
It  and  its  brethren  the  other  coronarias  are  never  happy 
here  for  long,  and  their  cultivation  must  be  pursued  on 
the  buy-and-die  system,  which  I  dislike  as  wasteful  and 
unkind  to  the  plants.  But  their  price  is  so  low  that 
I  occasionally  invest  in  a  hundred  or  so  to  get  at  least  one 
season's  fun  out  of  them.  I  will  not  go  into  raptures  over 
their  well-known  beauty,  nor  describe  the  way  we  struggle 
with  plants  that  others  can  grow  with  ease,  but  in  spite 
of  their  resemblance  to  stale  fruit  of  Castanea  sativa  I  must 
indulge  myself  by  retelling  tales  about  coronaria  that  I 
myself  enjoy.  The  first  is  of  good  Umberto,  Bishop  of 
Pisa,  who  arriving  in  the  Holy  Land  just  too  late  to  be  of 
204 


Anemones 

any  use  when  the  Crusaders  were  returning  home  de- 
feated, determined  some  good  should  come  of  his  enter- 
prise and  so  filled  his  ships  with  earth  from  Palestine, 
carried  it  to  Italy,  and  filled  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa  with 
it  that  the  dead  might  lie  in  the  holy  soil.  There  within 
those  lovely  cloisters  the  scarlet  A.  coronaria  was  seen  for 
the  first  time  in  Italy,  having  been  imported  with  the  soil 
no  doubt,  but  its  appearance  there  was  regarded  as  the  result 
of  a  miracle,  and  to  typify  anything  the  fertile  fancy  of 
medieval  monks  might  suggest  about  the  blood  of  holy 
martyrs  shed  on  that  soil.  It  is  more  pleasing  to  think  of 
the  certain  pleasure  thus  given  to  the  living  than  of  the 
advantages  that  were  imagined  for  the  dead.  The  other 
story  has  avillain  for  hero,a  Dutch  burgomaster  who  coveted 
a  magnificent  strain  of  Anemones  possessed  and  jealously 
guarded  by  a  burgher.  Seed  was  refused  to  the  great 
man,  so  he  plotted,  arranged  a  visit  to  Mynheer's  garden 
at  Anemone  seed-time  but  before  the  harvest ;  he  arrived  in 
state  and  clad  in  his  civic  robes,  and  by  cunningly  allowing 
his  furred  mantle  to  brush  over  the  seed  heads  went  home 
with  a  plentiful  supply  of  the  fluffy  seeds  caught  in  the  fur. 
Now  that  I  have  written  it  out  I  perceive  a  second  villain 
in  the  tale,  and  cannot  decide  which  was  the  worse,  the  thief 
or  the  miserly  gardener  who  refused  to  share  his  plants. 

I  try  to  keep  a  little  colony  on  the  rock  garden  of  the 
Palestine  A.  coronaria,  known  as  van  syriaca.  Like  other 
Palestine  members  of  the  family,  Adonis  and  Ranunculus, 
the  type  form  is  pure  scarlet,  and  lacks  the  usual  white  eye. 
I  have  had  white  forms,  though,  among  collected  roots.  It 
is  a  fine  thing  for  a  sunny  rock  bank,  and  especially  glow- 
ing if  backed  by  grey  stones  and  silvery-leaved  things  as  I 
205 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

had  it  this  Spring.  A.  hortensis  has  been  mentioned  in  an 
early  chapter  as  having  typified  and  announced  the  Spring 
in  Greece  to  me,  a  wanderer  on  its  hillsides.  I  wish  this 
race  might  have  borne  some  other  name,  for  it  is  one  of  the 
most  magnificently  coloured  of  all  wild  plants  :  its  varieties, 
fulgens  of  the  Pau  district  and  graeca  from  Greece,  have 
never  been  improved  upon  by  garden-raised  seedlings. 
Sutton's  Strain,  or  the  Aldboro'  lot,  fall  far  short  of  those 
I  saw  on  a  bank  edging  the  Olive  gardens  on  the  road  to 
Kephissia,  outside  Athens.  There  grow  the  true  broad- 
sepalled  graeca  form,  and  not  only  scarlet  forms  but  of 
every  shade  of  cerise,  salmon,  and  some  pure  white  all 
over,  others  with  broad,  white  rings  in  the  centre  of  the 
rosy  flowers.  I  had  seen  a  few  of  these  mixed  with  the 
normal  scarlet  being  sold  in  tight  little  bunches  in  the 
market-place,  but  could  not  learn  whence  they  came. 
Daily  excursions  from  Athens  did  not  reveal  the  secret 
until,  chasing  a  magnificent  Lacerta  ocellata  (the  great- 
eyed  lizard),  I  crossed  this  bank,  forgot  the  Saurian  and 
dug  the  plants. 

The  first  Anemone  of  the  season  here  is  another  Greek 
plant,  A.  blanda.  I  have  seen  it  in  flower  before  Christ- 
mas  at  Bitton,  but  never  before  mid-January  here.  Our 
earliest  form  is  in  a  broad  edging  at  a  corner  of  the  large 
herbaceous  bed,  and  resulted  from  a  planting  of  some 
collected  tubers.  They  are  mostly  of  rather  a  pale  blue, 
and  have  well-marked,  white  eyes,  and  are  not  so  good, 
in  spite  of  their  early  appearance,  as  the  deep  blue 
form  sometimes  known  as  var.  Ingramii.  This  band 
has  been  lengthened  by  a  patch  of  that  darker  variety, 
and  in  the  end  of  February  and  onwards  the  two  are 
206 


Anemones 

generally  out  together,  and  make  a  fine  display  in  the 
sunshine. 

The  pure  white  is  pretty  if  a  really  good  form  is  pro- 
cured, but  the  variety  scythinica,  at  one  time  misnamed 
cypriana,  is  particularly  lovely,  as  it  is  rich  sapphire  blue 
outside  but  pure  glistening  white  within,  and  a  half  ex- 
panded flower  showing  the  contrasting  colouring  is  a  sight 
worth  looking  at.  Both  in  this  band,  and  in  the  rock 
garden,  this  form  not  only  thrives  but  seeds  freely,  and  the 
greater  number  of  the  babes  are  as  handsome  as  their 
parents :  a  few  washy  ones  have  appeared,  but  I  suspect 
them  of  being  bastards,  and  should  say  if  grown  isolated 
from  other  blanda  forms  the  seedlings  would  all  come  true 
scythinica.  It  comes  into  flower  rather  later  than  the 
blue  forms  here,  and  lasts  on  longer  than  any.  There  is 
a  lovely  rose-coloured  form,  but  rather  scarce,  and  it  is  wise 
only  to  buy  var.  rosea  when  seen  in  flower,  for  some  shades 
of  mauvy  pink  and  pinky  mauve  are  quite  unnecessary  in 
a  plant  with  good  blue  and  pink  forms.  I  complained  to 
a  friend  that  I  could  no  longer  obtain  the  best  pink  form 
from  a  certain  nursery,  and  he  owned  up  that  he  had  over- 
hauled their  stock  one  Spring  and  left  them  none  to  send 
to  me.  In  reparation  he  most  kindly  gave  me  the  best 
form  I  have  ever  seen. 

A  few  years  ago  Bishop  Umberto's  miraculous  Anemone 
was  surpassed,  for  the  bed  under  the  south  wall  of  Bitton 
garden  presented  its  scholarly  chronicler  and  venerable 
master  with  a  tribute  of  its  affection  in  return  for  his  wise 
and  kindly  rule  of  over  half  a  century,  in  the  shape  of  a 
set  of  seedling  A.  blanda  beautifully  double  and  ranging 
in  colour  from  pale  lavender  blue  to  deep  ultramarine. 
207 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

A  note  from  the  Canon  brought  me  to  gaze  and  wonder 
at  their  beauty.  The  doubling  is  interesting  and  of  a  two- 
fold nature,  for  not  only  is  there  an  increased  number  of 
sepals,  but  the  anthers  are  transformed  into  short  petaloid 
bodies  set  among  the  whorls  of  sepals,  and  are  in  some 
forms  deeper  in  colour  than  they,  reminding  one  of  the 
doubling  of  a  Narcissus  such  as  Butter  and  Eggs,  where 
the  pale  perianth  segments  are  repeated  mingled  with  the 
smaller  and  deeper-coloured  sections  of  the  corona.  It 
must  by  this  time  be  quite  apparent  to  my  readers  that 
half  of  my  choicest  treasures  are  due  to  visits  to  Bitton 
and  the  generosity  of  Canon  Ellacombe,  and  they  will  not 
be  surprised  to  learn  that  both  a  pale  and  dark  form  of 
this  glorious  miracle  are  now  thriving  in  a  bay  of  my 
rock  garden  and  annually  remind  me  of  his  kindness.  A. 
appenina  everybody  should  know — it  ranges  from  Italy  to 
Turkey  ;  but  save  a  pure  white  form,  one  of  Dr.  Lowe's 
many  valued  gifts  to  me,  I  have  not  seen  any  other  that  I 
could  think  of  as  approaching  blanda  or  an  intermediate 
between  the  two  species.  This  white  one  is  earlier  than 
any  other  appenina,  and  rather  dwarfer  too,  and  is  a  true 
albino,  with  no  trace  of  pale  Prussian  blue  on  the 
backs  of  its  sepals  as  there  is  in  most  white  varieties  of 
appenina,  and  the  leaves  are  of  quite  a  yellow  shade  of 
green.  A  rose-coloured  form  has  been  offered,  but  has 
very  little  claim  to  the  title.  One  clump  that  I  bought  as 
var.  rosea  is  tinged  with  pale  lilac  outside  instead  of  the 
Prussian  blue  of  the  common  white  ones.  A  lilac  form 
that  originated  with  Messrs.  Van  Tubergen  forms  a  pleasant 
contrast,  and  is  prettily  irregular  and  starry  in  shape,  but 
the  double  form  also  sent  out  by  them  is  a  poor,  thin  thing 
208 


Anemones 

compared  with   the   double   blanda,  but  is  interesting  in 
spite  of  its  rather  washy  colour. 

The  typical  blue  form  is  one  of  the  best  plants  for 
naturalising  in  semi-wild  parts  of  the  garden.  I  have 
planted  some  among  rough  grass  at  the  edge  of  the  pond 
and  running  back  into  the  border  among  deciduous 
shrubs,  and  those  among  the  grass  do  quite  as  well  as 
those  in  the  border  soil,  and  like  most  flowers  rising  out 
of  grass  look  all  the  prettier  for  it.  The  Anemones  that 
thrive  best  here  and  so  give  most  pleasure  and  effect  are 
those  of  the  nemorosa  section,  with  running,  stoloniferous 
growths  that  ask  to  be  kept  plump  and  cool  or  even  moist 
throughout  the  season.  It  puzzles  me  why  they  should 
do  so  much  better  than  those  with  tubers  that  can  stand 
any  amount  of  baking  and  drying  off.  You  can  keep  A. 
coronaria  and  hortensis  dry  for  weeks  or  months  without 
injuring  them  otherwise  than  causing  them  to  grow  out 
of  their  chosen  season,  but  try  the  same  treatment  on  any 
nemorosa  and  you  will  find  it  as  dead  as  Rameses  the 
Great,  and  in  this  dry  garden  one  would  think  I  could 
give  a  happy  home  to  the  sun-lovers  on  grilling  ledges  of 
the  rock  garden  more  easily  than  I  could  imitate  the  cool 
woodland  home  of  the  nemorosa  section.  Of  course  I  do 
what  I  can  for  them  by  finding  western  or  northern  ex- 
posures for  them,  and  tucking  up  their  little  naked  brown 
limbs  with  a  new  leaf-soil  quilt  when  I  see  they  have  worn 
a  way  through  the  old  one,  and  most  of  them  have  spread 
into  good-sized  carpets  and  are  among  my  greatest  joys 
of  Spring.  Two  round  beds  cut  in  the  turf,  and  full  of 
dwarf  shrubs  and  herbaceous  plants,  are  almost  carpeted 
by  them  in  April.  Shaded,  low-lying  parts  of  the  rock 
209  O 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

garden  hold  some  of  the  rarer  varieties,  and  most  beds  of 
permanently  planted,  mixed  plants  are  annually  receiving 
the  overflow  from  the  Crowded  patches,  as  I  do  love  to 
carpet  bare  spots  under  deciduous  shrubs  and  round 
tall-growing  things  with  such  plants.  The  ordinary  wild 
nemorosa  is  worth  collecting  from  different  districts,  as  it 
varies  greatly  in  shape,  tint  of  colour,  and  time  of  flower- 
ing, and  keeps  up  its  old  customs  in  the  new  home.  I 
have  a  very  early  form  and  a  very  late  one,  and  the  common 
type  of  the  Cotswolds,  which  has  the  outside,  especially  of 
the  buds,  more  or  less  pink,  and  of  a  charming  creamy- 
rosy  tint.  It  is  so  noticeable  in  the  bud  stage,  when  the 
flowers  still  hang  their  heads,  that  one  of  the  most  noted 
botanists,  when  first  shown  them  in  a  Gloucestershire  wood, 
mistook  them  for  a  Cyclamen. 

Two  varieties  are  listed  as  rubra  and  rubra  fl.  pi.,  but 
though  they  are  worth  growing  they  open  quite  white,  and 
only  flush  to  a  red  as  they  age.  The  red,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, is  rather  too  cold,  and  suggestive  of  that  little  devil 
whose  name  is  Legion  as  well  as  Magenta  who  too  often 
possesses  and  ruins  pink  flowers.  They  are  both  effective 
when  contrasted  with  white  and  blue  forms,  and  seem  to 
linger  on  longer  than  the  white  ones,  loth  to  shed  the 
flowers  that  have  gradually  deepened  to  such  a  fine  colour. 
The  so-called  fl.  pi.  is  not  much  more  than  semi-double, 
having  at  its  fullest  no  more  than  a  second  row  of  sepals. 

There  -is  a  dainty  little  pure  white  one  called  Vestal 
which  Herr  Max  Leichtlin  sent  out  into  the  world,  but  I 
do  not  know  where  it  originated.  The  anthers  are  nearly 
as  white  as  the  sepals,  and  make  the  flowers  look  like  A. 
trifolia,  but  the  leaves  are  those  of  nemorosa  right  enough. 

210 


Anemones 

Two  very  fine  forms  are  listed  under  the  one  name  of 
grandiflora  ;  one  is  a  tall  grower  with  long  and  narrow 
leaflets,  and  the  flower  also  is  rather  starry  and  slightly 
doubled  and  faintly  flushed  with  pink,  and  I  believe  it  was 
found  in  Ireland  some  years  ago  by  Lady  Doneraile.  I 
do  not  like  it  so  much  as  the  other  form,  which  I  have 
always  called  Leeds'  variety,  as  Dr.  Lowe  gave  it  to  me 
under  that  name,  and  told  me  he  had  it  from  Leeds  him- 
self, but  I  do  not  know  whether  he  was  the  finder  of  it. 

There  is  a  good  figure  of  it  in  the  Garden  for  October 
15,  1887,  and  Burbridge  wrote  about  it  later  as  "a  large, 
pure-white  form,  very  distinct  and  beautiful.  I  first  saw 
it  at  Munstead,  and  I  think  it  was  there  called  Dr.  Lowe's 
Variety.  In  general  size  and  stature  it  resembles  the 
lovely  pale  or  lavender-blue  Robinsoniana  which  may 
possibly  be  a  form  of  it,  varying  mainly  in  colour."  I 
have  always  felt  the  same  about  it,  and  have  tried  to  find 
out  where  both  of  them  grow  wild,  and  hope  that  at  last 
I  am  on  the  right  scent,  for  a  year  ago  I  saw  in  a 
Herefordshire  garden  a  form  of  blue  Anemone  evidently 
Robinsoniana,  but  with  a  redder  tint  on  the  stalks  and  young 
leaves,  and  learnt  that  it  came  from  a  wood  in  Norway. 
I  am  now  the  happy  possessor  of  some  of  this  stock,  and 
am  watching  its  behaviour  beside  the  older  form.  But  I 
want  very  much  to  see  what  Norwegian  white  Wood 
Anemones  are  like,  as  I  hope  they  may  prove  to  be  Leeds' 
Variety.  I  have  never  seen  any  wild  forms  from  Britain 
or  Ireland  that  approach  these  in  the  width  of  segments 
and  good  form.  Leeds'  is  perhaps  even  more  perfectly 
shaped  and  formed  like  a  single  Rose  than  is  Robinsoniana, 
and  its  bright  green,  ample  leaves  make  a  fine  background 

211 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

for  the  large  flowers,  which  when  doing  well  are  nearly 
two  inches  in  diameter. 

I  do  not  believe  A.  Robinsoniana  originated  in  Ireland, 
as  I  have  several  wild  blue  forms  sent  me  from  Irish  woods, 
and  they  have  all  been  of  ordinary  nemorosa  type.  Mr. 
Robinson  has  told  me  that  he  first  saw  his  blue  Anemone 
at  the  foot  of  a  wall  in  the  Oxford  Botanic  Garden. 
Baxter,  who  was  then  the  curator,  told  him  it  had  been 
sent  to  him  by  a  lady  in  Ireland. 

I  think  this  started  the  idea  of  its  Irish  origin,  but 
of  course  she  may  have  had  it  from  Norway.  I  am 
quite  convinced  Leeds'  Variety  is  the  best  of  the  white 
forms,  but  will  not  say  that  Robinsoniana  is  peerless  among 
the  blues.  For  I  can  never  forgive  it  for  closing  so  readily 
on  dull  days  and  towards  evening  in  a  rather  sulky,  short- 
tempered  way,  and  then  displaying  what  I  can  only  call 
a  cotton  back,  a  poor  greyish-tinted  outside  not  much 
better  than  a  dirty  white.  When  open  its  soft,  glowing, 
rosy-lilac  flowers  are  certainly  very  lovely  and  a  large 
patch  of  it  glistening  with  April  raindrops  in  its  leaves, 
but  its  flowers  open  to  the  sunshine,  makes  one  want  to 
cease  worrying  about  weeds  and  just  enjoy  the  Spring 
scents  and  flowers.  But  A.  Allenii  has  eclipsed  it  in  beauty, 
being  larger  in  all  its  parts  yet  beautifully  proportioned,  and 
of  a  slightly  deeper  shade  of  lilac  within  and  flushed  with 
rosy  purple  on  the  outside,  so  that  a  bud  and  closed  flower 
are  warm,  glowing  things  like  snow  mountains  flushed  with 
a  sunset  glow,  while  a  closed  Robinsoniana  is  like  the 
effect  of  death  pallor  that  follows  when  the  light  leaves 
the  peaks. 

How  Mr.  Allen  must  have  enjoyed  his  first  sight  of 
212 


Anemones 

this,  the  largest  and  loveliest  of  blue  Wood  Anemones,  when 
he  first  saw  it  among  his  seedlings. 

It  is  still  rather  a  rare  plant,  and  is  one  of  those  that 
all  who  see  long  for  so  passionately  that  it  has  not  spread 
into  a  very  large  clump  here  yet,  but  it  seems  a  good 
grower,  and  so  I  hope  soon  to  get  broader  effects  from  it. 
The  most  effective  blue  form  I  have  is  known  as  A. 
nemorosa,  var.  purpurea,  because  the  closed  flowers  are 
quite  rosy-purple  even  in  the  bud  stage,  but  the  open 
flowers  are  of  a  good  soft  blue.  It  grows  very  freely,  and  I 
have  been  able  to  make  several  colonies  of  it.  It  will 
grow  well  in  sun  or  shade,  but  the  flowers  are  taller 
and  larger  and  last  longer  in  the  shade.  It  has  been 
found  wild  more  than  once  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Pau, 
and  was  mainly  distributed  by  Herr  Max  Leichtlin. 

Much  like  it,  but  of  varying  shades,  are  some  beautiful 
forms  sent  to  me  from  Lismore  woods  by  Miss  Currey, 
who  told  me  that  those  growing  along  the  banks  of  the 
streams  were  mostly  blue,  but  in  the  rest  of  the  woods 
only  the  ordinary  white  form  occurred.  Mr.  Allen  also 
raised  a  beautiful  seedling  he  named  Blue  Queen  and 
which  is  the  brightest  blue  of  any,  quite  a  Forget-me-not 
blue  and  a  pretty  early  flowering  form,  but  on  the  small 
side.  Celestial  is  much  the  same  but  paler,  and  I  believe 
another  of  his  seedlings.  Then  there  is  the  form  known 
as  var.  coerulea,  which  is  plentiful  in  certain  districts 
of  Wales  where  the  slate  crops  out.  It  varies  from  rosy 
tinted  forms  almost  as  deep  as  purpurea,  to  others  only 
flushed  with  blue  in  very  young  blossoms,  and  the  pale 
forms  flower  earlier  than  the  deeper  ones — at  least  so  I 
find  here. 

213 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

A  late  flowering  and  distinct  form  from  Co.  Wicklow 
I  owe  to  The  O'Mahony,  who  found  it  wild  in  wet  land 
close  to  the  river.  It  has  some  likeness  to  the  one  known 
as  Blue  Bonnet,  which  was  found  in  Wales  and  taken  to 
Daisy  Hill,  Newry,  where  Mr.  Smith's  magic  wand  makes 
everything  grow.  Blue  Bonnet  is  the  latest  of  all  the 
nemorosa  section  to  flower,  and  is  very  distinct  in  appear- 
ance, being  more  waxy  in  texture  than  the  others,  and  of 
such  good  substance  that  it  lasts  on  till  the  middle  of  May 
in  shady  nooks,  and  I  have  never  noticed  it  flag  with  the 
warmer  temperature. 

There  is  yet  another  called  Robinsoniana  cornubiensis, 
but  I  have  never  seen  it  doing  really  well  anywhere  or 
looking  very  much  like  Robinsoniana  :  it  strikes  me  as  a 
lanky  form  of  nemorosa  purpurea,  but  if  it  were  really 
strong  and  vigorous  it  might  improve.  I  think  much 
might  be  done  by  collecting  these  blue  forms  and  sowing 
all  the  seed  they  give.  Besides  the  so-called  double  rose- 
coloured  one  mentioned  above,  there  are  two  distinct 
double  white  ones  commonly  grown  :  the  best  is  a  very  old 
inhabitant  of  gardens,  with  six  well-formed  and  regular 
sepals,  and  then  the  whole  centre  rilled  up  with  a  rosette 
of  petaloid  bodies,  beautifully  neat  and  regular,  looking 
like  a  small  double  Daisy.  It  is  well  figured  in  Maund's 
Botanic  Garden  and  in  Wooster's  Alpine  Plants,  but  with- 
out any  hint  in  the  text  of  either  as  to  its  origin.  I  like 
to  think  it  was  the  plant  that  Gerard  grew,  and  of  which 
he  writes  :  "  There  is  in  some  choice  gardens  one  of  this 
kinde  with  white  flowers  very  double  as  is  that  of  the 
scarlet  anemone,  and  I  had  one  of  them  given  me  by  a 
Worshipfull  Merchant  of  London  called  Mr.  John  Fran- 
214 


Anemones 

queville  my  very  good  friend."  There  is  no  figure  of  it  in 
the  original  1597  edition,  and  Johnson  has  used  Clusius' 
figure,  and  in  his  additional  note  mentions  that,  unlike  the 
single  form,  it  has  leaves  in  two  places  on  its  stalk,  which, 
together  with  the  beautiful  old  woodcut,  show  that  it  is 
not  the  neat  double  form  that  he  is  referring  to  but  the 
one  we  now  know  as  A.  nemorosa  bracteata,  fl.pl.,  a  ragged, 
untidy  thing  that  never  comes  two  seasons  alike. 

Now  Clusius  tells  us  the  history  of  this  and  a  double 
purple  form  which  seems  to  have  been  lost,  how  that  they 
had  only  recently  been  discovered,  and  had  not  been 
described  elsewhere.  He  had  not  seen  their  flowers  until 
the  April  of  1593,  though  one  John  Boisot  had  sent  him 
the  plants  two  years  previously,  directing  that  they  should 
be  kept  in  pots  and  somewhat  starved,  for  with  excessive 
luxury  they  would  degenerate  and  bear  single  flowers. 
Both  had  bracteate  leaves  under  the  flowers  as  well  as 
the  usual  involucre  of  three  leaves,  and  had  been  found  by 
chance  a  few  years  previously  in  two  woods,  of  which  he 
gives  the  names,  in  Belgium.  It  is  very  unlikely,  then,  that 
Gerard  knew  of  them  prior  to  the  publication  in  1601  of 
Clusius'  Historia,  and  I  am  sure  if  he  had  seen  one  with 
the  two  sets  of  involucral  leaves  he  would  have  mentioned 
that  peculiarity. 

I  much  prefer  the  neat,  double  form  to  that  eccentric 
Mad  Hatter  and  March  Hare  in  one,  the  variable  bracteata, 
which  in  some  seasons  may  be  nearly  single,  then  in 
another  the  green  bracts  will  be  mixed  among  the  white 
sepals,  or  they  may  be  striped  with  green,  or  at  other 
times  stained  with  a  dull  purple.  There  is  a  mild  excite- 
ment to  be  obtained  from  growing  such  an  unreliable 
215 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

plant  and  watching  its  vagaries,  and  those  people  who 
enjoy  statistics  might  like  to  tabulate  the  periodical  re- 
appearances of  any  particular  form. 

The  yellow  Wood  Anemones  are  not  so  effective  in  the 
borders  as  the  white  and  blue,  but  are  pleasing  in  contrast 
with  them.  A.  ranunculoides  in  its  typical  form  is  rather 
small  flowered,  but  makes  up  for  that  defect  when  in  good 
health  and  vigour,  by  producing  two  blossoms  on  each 
scape,  and  as  the  second  one  does  not  open  until  the  first 
has  fallen,  the  flowering  period  of  a  clump  is  lengthened. 
There  is  a  larger  flowered  form  of  it  which  I  believe  is  found 
in  Italy,  and  is  a  good  thing,  but  not  plentiful  as  yet,  nor 
does  it  spread  so  quickly  here  as  the  older  one,  which  has 
made  wide  carpets  in  some  borders.  Quite  lately  a  semi- 
double  form  has  been  introduced,  and  is  pretty  and  well 
worth  growing,  as  it  is  not  too  double  to  interfere  with  the 
central  fringe  of  stamens.  My  favourite  form  is  one 
known  as  var.  pallida,  with  fairly  large  primrose  yellow 
flowers,  but  it  increases  very  slowly,  and  does  not  form  so 
dense  a  clump  as  the  others.  There  is  a  very  interesting 
hybrid  between  ranunculoides  and  nemorosa  that  is  found 
growing  among  its  parents  in  Silesia,  Saxony,  Baden,  and 
Alsace-Lorraine,  and  is  named  A.  intermedia.  It  is  small 
in  flower,  rather  thin  in  texture,  and  a  pale  sulphur  colour, 
but  is  quite  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  rock  garden,  as  it  is 
always  the  first  of  the  nemorosa  section  to  flower,  and 
often  breaks  through  the  ground  in  February,  and  opens 
its  blossoms  a  few  days  after  the  arched  stems  have  lifted 
them  through  the  soil.  The  Italian  and  Austrian  A.  trifolia 
differs  from  nemorosa  chiefly  in  the  curious  deep  green  of 
216 


Anemones 

its  leaves,  that  look  as  though  they  should  be  evergreen, 
they  are  so  dark  and  of  such  firm  texture  :  the  flowers  are 
of  a  very  cold  white,  and  perhaps  rather  small  for  the 
important-looking  leaves.  I  have  brought  home  a  blue- 
flowered  form  of  singular  beauty  from  the  Dolomites,  but 
it  has  not  yet  grown  strong  enough  to  show  its  beauty  here, 
and  whether  or  no  in  changing  its  sky  it  will  not  change 
its  sky  colour  also.  The  Japanese  A.  flaccida  is  good  for 
a  moist  position,  but  gets  thirsty  and  tired  and  then  faints 
on  warm  days  in  an  ordinary  border.  The  leaves  are  very 
attractive,  as  they  vary  in  colour  from  youth  to  age.  At 
first  they  are  a  golden  bronze,  then  turn  a  bright  green 
spotted  with  white,  and  end  by  being  dark  green  marbled 
with  grey,  and  a  good-sized  clump  will  bear  many  shades 
of  green  at  one  time.  They  suggest  the  leaves  of  a 
Buttercup  in  shape  and  general  appearance,  but  are  seen 
to  be  too  glossy  for  any  common  one  when  looked  at 
carefully.  The  flowers  are  about  the  size  of  Wood  Ane- 
mones, but  more  creamy  in  colour.  The  various  forms 
and  near  relatives  of  A.  Pulsatilla  are  delightful  plants  for 
edgings  to  borders  or  grouping  among  other  plants  in 
good,  broad  masses.  I  find  the  best  way  to  establish  them 
is  to  sow  seed  as  soon  as  ripe,  either  where  you  want 
them  or  in  a  reserve  ground,  and  pricking  out  the  resulting 
plants  when  about  a  year  old.  Sown  as  soon  as  gathered 
they  germinate  freely  in  a  few  weeks,  and  look  wonder- 
fully like  small  Buttercups  for  their  first  season,  and  not 
till  the  following  Spring  will  they  produce  the  finely-cut 
leaves  they  bear  ever  after.  They  dislike  disturbance  and 
interference  with  their  long  tap-root,  so  are  rather  difficult 
217 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

to  transplant  when  elderly.  The  large,  pale-flowered  form 
is  the  most  effective  to  plant  freely,  but  there  is  a  good 
one  often  sold  as  A.  H alien,  with  even  finer  cut  leaves 
than  the  common  form  and  deep  purple  flowers.  It  looks 
well  mixed  among  the  others,  but  is  not  Halleri,  which  may 
be  easily  recognised  by  its  silky  pinnatifid  leaves.  I  have 
lately  got  as  A.  rubra  a  deep  chocolate-red  form  of  Pulsatilla 
that  is  very  distinct,  but  some  sad  fate  has  always  decreed 
the  destruction  of  the  white  form  just  as  it  was  settling 
down  here.  The  most  frequent  cause  of  failure  here 
among  the  Pulsatilla  family  is  some  evil  but  undeter- 
mined underground  animal  that  eats  holes  in  the  collar 
of  that  plant  which  are  followed  by  decay  and  a  sudden 
flagging  of  leaves,  and  if  the  injured  part  is  not  at  once 
removed  the  whole  plant  is  liable  to  rot  off.  A  very  fine 
old  clump  of  the  form  called  A.  pratensis  montana  has 
lost  more  than  three-quarters  of  its  many  crowns  in  this 
way  this  season.  This  is  a  very  tall  growing  variety  with 
nodding  flowers  of  very  deep  purple :  unfortunately  they 
do  not  open  widely  enough  to  be  as  beautiful  as  they  seem 
to  promise,  but  the  seed  heads  are  very  fine,  great  balls 
of  grey-green  feathers  borne  on  stems  two  feet  in  height. 

I  struggled  for  years  with  A.  sylvestris,  and  got  for  my 
pains  thin  carpets  of  rather  unattractive  leaves,  and  after 
a  season  or  two  a  bare  centre  and  an  ever-widening  circle 
of  the  flowerless  tufts.  Then  the  var.  baicalensis  came, 
and  I  thought  was  better,  as  though  rather  stingy  in  the 
way  of  bloom  it  generally  produced  a  half  dozen  or  so 
that  were  pretty  with  their  rosy  purple  exterior.  Then 
some  ten  years  ago  I  got  the  var.  grandiflora  from  a  Con- 
218 


Anemones 

tinental  nursery,  and  I  could  soon  see  the  other  forms 
might  be  allowed  to  die  out  for  want  of  replanting,  for  the 
newcomer  gives  abundance  of  larger  and  purer  white 
flowers,  does  not  travel  too  rapidly,  as  every  one  who  sees 
it  wants  it  and  carries  off  the  outliers,  and  best  of  all  it 
does  not  die  out  in  the  centre  when  it  has  occupied  the 
ground  for  more  than  two  seasons,  so  the  crevice  in  the 
rock  garden  in  which  it  was  first  planted  is  still  full  of  it, 
and  the  large,  white  flowers  come  in  Spring,  then  the  ripe 
seeds  like  lumps  of  cotton  wool  follow,  and  are  very  white 
and  ornamental,  and  till  late  in  the  autumn  the  plant  is 
continually  throwing  up  a  fresh  flower-stem  or  two.  I  still 
keep  the  double-flowered  form  because  I  like  its  wonder- 
fully full  flowers  when  they  appear,  and  also  because  it 
has  taken  possession  of  the  slate  bank  of  the  rock  garden 
and  would  be  hard  to  dislodge. 

Some  day  I  hope  A.  alpina  and  A.  sulphur  eaw\\\  be  worth 
writing  about  here  ;  at  present  they  are  mostly  playing  the 
role  of  foliage  plants,  which  any  Carrot  or  Parsley  could 
do  as  effectively.  Some  are  only  seedlings,  and  so  cannot 
be  blamed,  but  others  I  brought  from  Mt.  Cenis,  where 
one  walks  for  miles  among  knee-high  tufts,  and  now  and 
then  is  obliged  to  stop  and  admire  the  extra  light  turquoise 
back  of  one,  the  soft  sulphur  tint  or  pure  dazzling  white  of 
another,  the  semi-double  or  extra  wide  sepalled  flowers  of 
more,  and  wonder  which  is  the  most  beautiful.  Unless 
Ranunculus  Lyallii  covers  the  Alps  of  New  Zealand  with 
a  wonderfully  lavish  profusion  of  flowers  I  feel  sure  A. 
alpina  on  Mt.  Cenis  must  afford  the  most  beautiful  floral 
display  of  the  world.  It  looks  so  hardy  and  easy  to 
219 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

manage  when  seen  springing  up  in  the  mountain  turf  that 
I  am  rather  disappointed  that  so  far  only  one  of  my  care- 
fully-nursed plants  has  recovered  its  spirits  enough  to 
flower ;  but  the  one  splendid  white  flower  it  gave  me  this 
Spring  makes  me  feel  no  trouble  is  too  great  that  will  help 
them  to  grow  strong. 


220 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Iris  Walk  in   May 

THE  northern  bank  of  the  New  River  provides  us  with 
a  long  grass  path  and  one  of  the  most  sheltered  walks  in 
the  garden.  For  it  is  protected  from  the  cold  winds  by 
the  row  of  fine  old  Yews  I  have  chronicled  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  and  the  southern  side  is  bounded  by  the  river, 
and  so  is  open  to  catch  all  the  sunlight,  and  the  first  Daisy 
of  the  season  always  appears  close  to  the  water's  edge  on 
the  slope  of  the  bank.  The  long  beds  that  flank  this  path 
were  at  one  time  monopolised  by  a  dreary  collection  of 
Laurels,  Laurustinus,  and  the  other  dull  things  that  former 
generations  planted  so  largely  and  called  shrubbery,  but 
they  have  all  disappeared  to  make  way  for  my  principal 
collection  of  Irises,  especially  those  of  the  Bearded  section. 
This  group  suffers  much  at  the  hands  of  catalogue  makers, 
and  members  of  it  are  often  dubbed  German  Irises,  though 
very  few  of  those  included  under  the  heading  have  any 
affinity  with  /.  germanica.  I  have  seen  and  heard  them 
called  Rhizotomous — a  travesty  of  rhizomatous — and  all 
the  while  the  pleasant  title  of  Bearded  Flags  is  good 
English  and  faithfully  descriptive. 

Three  of  these  borders  are  very  much  overhung  by 
the  old  Yews,  and  of  course  the  roots  fill  and  drain  them 
very  effectually,  and  though  they  lie  so  close  to  the  river, 
221 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

not  one  drop  of  its  water  soaks  through  to  them,  for  to 
begin  with  Sir  Hugh  Myddelton  saw  to  the  proper  con- 
struction of  its  clay  banks  three  hundred  years  ago,  and 
vigilant  officials,  first  of  the  New  River  Company  and  now 
of  the  Metropolitan  Water  Board,  have  ever  since  been  on 
the  watch  for  weak  spots  and  ready  to  apply  fresh  clay 
when  needed.  So  that  in  spite  of  the  nearness  of  so  much 
water,  these  beds  are  about  as  dry  and  starved  as  any  in 
the  world,  and  very  few  plants  will  grow  in  them  so 
happily  as  the  Flag  Irises. 

Where  the  row  of  Yews  ceases,  the  beds  are  wider  and 
more  open  at  the  back,  and  there  is  one  between  river  and 
pond  that  runs  back  a  good  way,  and  holds  two  fine  old 
Scots  Pines,  and  a  group  or  two  of  flowering  trees.  The 
Chinese  Almond,  Prunus  Davidiana,  in  both  its  pink  and 
white  forms  opens  the  season,  often  flowering  in  early 
February,  but  sometimes  in  late  January,  when  the  Witch 
Hazels  race  it  for  first  place.  Hamamelis  arborea  is  always 
the  first  of  these,  and  its  rich  orange  threads  catch  the 
sunlight  on  bright  days  and  make  a  brave  show.  Then 
the  newer  H.  mollis  opens  its  rather  larger  blossoms,  and 
is  followed  by  japonica  and  its  variety  Zuccariniana,  which 
have  paler  yellow  flowers  and  show  up  well  from  a  dis- 
tance. These  grow  towards  the  pond  side,  but  at  that 
period  of  leaflessness  can  be  seen  from  the  river  bank 
across  the  Iris  bed  and  through  the  central  group  of 
Crabs  which  later  on  completely  hides  them.  A  Siberian 
Crab  behind  and  two  Pyrus  Malus  floribunda  in  front  make 
a  lovely  picture  when  full  of  flower,  especially  while  'the 
/loribunda's  buds  are  still  round  and  crimson.  Three 
purple-leaved  Birches  rise  just  behind  them  and  form  the 

222 


Iris  florentina  in  May.     (Sec  p.  223.) 


The  Iris  Walk  in  May 

background.  A  Judas  tree,  Cercis  Siliquastrum,  leans  out 
over  the  Irises,  but  not  a  very  large  specimen,  as  my  forbears 
forgot  to  plant  one,  and  it  is  one  of  the  trees  that  a  thoughtful 
great-grandfather  should  plant  for  his  descendants.  So 
this  is  of  my  planting,  but  has  grown  quickly  and  flowered 
well  in  some  seasons,  and  seems  to  be  an  especially  brightly 
coloured  variety,  approaching  a  crimson,  though  not  of  so 
deep  a  shade  as  the  flowers  of  a  glorious  row  I  saw  in  full 
bloom  in  the  chief  square  of  Corfu  one  Spring.  The  whole 
front  of  this  bed  is  planted  with  a  band  some  8  feet  deep 
and  20  yards  long  of  Iris  florentina,  with  every  now 
and  then  a  clump  of  I.  germanica  among  them.  At  first 
it  was  all  florentina,  but  a  purple  germanica  got  in  by 
accident,  and  I  saw  how  greatly  its  presence  improved  the 
general  effect,  which  was  rather  too  cold  before,  so  I 
planted  others  at  regular  intervals.  When  this  bed  is  in 
full  glory  in  the  middle  of  May  it  is  as  beautiful  as 
anything  in  the  garden,  whether  viewed  end  on  to  get  the 
solid  mass  of  blossoms  or  from  the  opposite  bank  to  see 
the  line  of  grey  and  purple  flowers  reflected  in  the  water. 
Looking  eastward  you  get  the  bend  of  the  river  as  back- 
ground, and  the  terrace  with  its  beds  of  Darwin  Tulips 
reflected  in  it,  and  the  other  way  looking  down  westward, 
the  view  is  blocked  by  a  fine  old  Weeping  Willow,  growing 
on  the  pond  bank  and  hanging  right  over  the  grass  path, 
so  that  we  have  to  keep  an  arch  cut  in  it  to  make  a  way 
through.  Next  to  the  Willow  is  a  good  specimen  of  the 
Weeping  Ash  which  carries  on  the  series  of  arches,  and 
makes  when  in  leaf  a  very  pleasing  colour-contrast  with 
the  paler  green  Willow.  The  Weeping  Willow  is  a  tree 
that  is  full  of  interesting  associations,  so  we  will  sit  on  the 
223 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

seat  under  this  one  to  review  some  of  them.  The  use  of 
the  Willow  as  an  emblem  of  grief  is  older  than  the  intro- 
duction of  the  weeping  variety,  for  most  of  our  older 
English  poets  have  connected  the  ordinary  Willow  with 
sorrow,  and  especially  that  of  forsaken  lovers.  Shakespeare 
writes  of  it  in  connection  with  grief  at  least  eight  times  ; 
and  Ophelia  fell  into  the  stream  when  endeavouring  to 
hang  her  garland  on  a  Willow.  Was  it  then  on  account 
of  the  wailing  sound  of  the  English  name,  or,  as  some 
think,  did  the  literary  association  arise  from  the  Bible 
translation  of  the  hundred  and  thirty-seventh  Psalm : 
"  By  the  waters  of  Babylon  we  sat  down  ;  yea,  we  wept 
when  we  remembered  Zion.  We  hanged  our  harps  upon 
the  Willows  in  the  midst  thereof "  ?  This  latter  seems 
the  most  likely  explanation  I  have  met  with.  It  has 
frequently  been  asserted  that  the  Willow  growing  along 
the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  is  actually  this  Weeping  Willow, 
and  on  that  account  its  scientific  name  is  Salix  babylonica. 
Linnaeus  certainly  gave  it  the  name  under  this  impression, 
and  I  must  own  to  a  feeling  of  disappointment  in  having  to 
bow  to  such  great  authorities  as  Messrs.  Elwes  and  Henry, 
who  declare  in  their  great  joint  work  that  the  trees  of  that 
Psalm  are  Populus  euphratica,  and  that  this  Willow  does 
not  occur  now  in  Babylonia,  and  its  original  home  is 
Central  and  Southern  China.  But  if  this  fond  old  belief 
has  to  be  abandoned,  it  is  pleasant  to  have  this  tree  thus 
surely  connected  with  the  familiar  one  on  the  Willow 
Pattern  plates  that  has  provided  the  name  for  that  cele- 
brated Chinese  landscape  design,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  acrobatic  pair  of  forky-tailed  birds  and  the  wonderfully 
fertile  apple  tree  that  bears  such  a  crop  of  fruit  without 
224 


The  Iris  Walk  in  May 

a  single  leaf,  are  far  more  remarkable  than  the  moribund, 
sparsely-branched  Willow.  The  date  of  its  introduction 
to  England  is  doubtful,  but  it  was  before  1730,  for  it  was 
included  as  "  S.  orientalis,  the  weeping  Willow  vulgo " 
in  a  catalogue  of  trees  and  shrubs  of  that  date,  and  from 
Dillwyn's  Hortus  Collinsonianus  we  learn  "  Mr  Vernon, 
Turkey  merchant  at  Aleppo,  transplanted  the  Weeping 
Willow  from  the  River  Euphrates  and  brought  it  with  him 
to  England  and  planted  it  at  his  seat  at  Twickenham 
Park,  where  I  saw  it  growing  anno  1748.  This  is  the 
original  of  all  the  Willows  in  our  gardens.  In  July  1765 
I  measured  a  Weeping  Willow  at  Mr.  Snelling's  at 
Godalming,  Surrey,  of  about  fifteen  years'  standing  ;  it 
measured  six  feet  in  girth,  or  two  feet  in  diameter,  and 
the  height  in  proportion,"  and  therefore  we  must  not 
credit  Pope  with  its  introduction,  though  we  may  still 
believe  the  tale  that  he  was  visiting  Lady  Suffolk  when 
she  received  a  present  from  Turkey  which  was  bound 
round  by  Willow  twigs,  and  he  noticed  that  some  of  them 
were  alive,  and  took  them  to  plant,  saying,  "  Perhaps  these 
may  produce  something  which  we  have  not  in  England." 
One  of  them  grew  in  the  garden  of  his  villa  at  Twicken- 
ham into  the  Weeping  Willow  afterwards  so  celebrated, 
and  which  was  cut  down  in  the  year  1801,  by  the  then 
owner  of  the  villa,  because  he  was  so  much  annoyed  by 
the  numbers  of  people  who  came  and  asked  to  see  it. 
Shortly  after  this  the  Weeping  Willow  became  associated 
with  Napoleon.  When  General  Beatson  was  Governor  of 
St.  Helena,  he  had  some  trees  sent  out  from  England  to 
plant  in  the  island,  and  a  Weeping  Willow  was  among 
them,  and  had  grown  into  a  fine  tree  by  the  time  of 
225  P 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Napoleon's  imprisonment  on  the  island.  He  had  a  seat 
placed  under  it,  and  frequently  sat  there,  as  it  was  close 
to  a  spring,  the  water  of  which  he  liked  to  drink.  About 
the  time  of  the  Emperor's  death,  a  storm  shattered  the 
tree,  and  Mme.  Bertrand  planted  some  cuttings  of  it  round 
Napoleon's  grave.  Before  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal, 
ships  touched  at  St.  Helena  on  their  way  home  from  the 
East  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  the  passengers 
generally  visited  Napoleon's  tomb  and  brought  away 
cuttings  of  the  Willow,  which  quickly  rooted  in  a  bottle  of 
water,  and  were  ready  to  be  planted  by  the  time  they 
reached  England.  Several  trees  in  this  neighbourhood 
are  known  to  have  been  brought  in  this  way  from  St. 
Helena,  and  I  believe  the  tree  here  was  a  cutting  from  one 
of  them.  An  Arabian  legend  tells  that  the  Weeping 
Willow  sprang  from  the  tears  David  wept  when  he  re- 
pented of  the  murder  of  Uriah. 

It  is  a  favourite  plant  throughout  the  temperate 
regions  for  planting  in  cemeteries.  The  pendant  branches 
I  suppose  are  thought  to  resemble  the  hanging  head  of  a 
mourner,  and  so  we  term  such  forms  of  trees  weeping 
varieties,  but  it  always  strikes  me  as  unfair  to  associate 
the  Weeping  Willow  with  grief.  The  grey-leaved  Willows 
are  sombre  and  sad-looking  in  summer  among  green- 
leaved  trees,  but  S.  babylonica  is  always  the  first  of  decidu- 
ous trees  to  look  green  in  Spring,  remains  a  tender  light 
green  all  through  the  summer,  and  is  often  one  of  the 
latest  to  shed  its  leaves,  and  has  the  appearance  of  a 
flourishing,  happy,  and  gaily-clad  tree  for  a  longer  period 
than  most  others.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  unlike  the 
other  weeping  trees,  Ash,  Beech,  Elm  and  so  forth,  of 
226 


The  Iris  Walk  in  May 

which  the  upright  forms  are  the  commoner,  the  supposed 
upright  form  of  5.  babylonica  known  as  var.  pekinensis  is 
exceedingly  rare,  and  has  been  but  lately  introduced  to 
Kew. 

Now,  then  after  this  rest  on  the  seat  under  the  Willow, 
let  us  cease  our  musings  over  dead  poets  and  emperors 
and  get  back  to  the  flowers.  Either  end  of  the  Iris 
ftorentina  bed  is  rounded  off  by  one  of  the  two  bays 
formed  by  the  pond  ;  the  Willow  benefits  by  rooting  into 
one  of  these,  and  the  other  helps  a  clump  of  Gunnera 
chilensis,  as  we  nowadays  must  call  G.  manicata,  the  finest 
of  its  family,  for  though  its  leaves  are  not  so  much  indented 
as  those  of  G.  scabra,  its  longer  petioles  raise  them  some 
foot  or  two  higher.  In  May  these  leaves  are  not  fully 
developed,  but,  unless  sharp  frosts  have  been  worrying 
them,  should  be  large  enough  to  be  worth  looking  at  and 
yet  not  too  large  to  hide  the  huge  cone-shaped  heads  of 
insignificant  little  flowers  which  show  up  more  then 
than  at  any  other  time.  I  like  to  leave  one  or  two  of 
these  heads  to  show  what  sort  of  flower  these  plants 
think  fit  to  produce,  each  floret  about  the  size  of  a 
housefly's  head,  while  a  leaf  is  five  feet  across  and  on  a 
stalk  six  feet  or  more  high.  But  I  cut  off  the  remainder 
of  the  dozen  or  so  flower-heads  that  my  clump  produces, 
as  I  think  their  loss  encourages  it  to  put  its  strength  into 
the  leaves. 

A  round  bed  in  the  turf  comes  between  the  pond  and 
river  here,  and  a  fastigiate  Hawthorn  grows  in  its  centre 
and  makes  a  good  contrast  to  the  Weeping  Ash  of 
the  other  bay  of  the  pond.  Now  we  will  turn  to  the 
left  and  follow  the  pond  edge  until  we  get  a  view  right 
227 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

across  its  width  to  the  stone  steps.  I  built  them  out  of 
the  debris  of  an  old  house  that  was  pulled  down  on  an 
outlying  part  of  the  estate.  The  old  doorsteps,  copings, 
and  window-sills  and  some  black  and  white  hall  flooring 
have  met  again  here,  and  look  as  though  they  had  been 
quarried  for  the  purpose,  and  that  some  centuries  ago, 
now  that  various  plants  have  sprung  up  in  the  cracks  and 
holes.  They  make  a  convenient  place  to  stand  a  collection 
of  Agaves,  Aloes,  and  other  specimen  succulent  plants 
during  the  summer ;  the  first  arrivals,  Agaves  and  Agapan- 
thus  in  tubs  had  just  been  placed  there  when  the  photo- 
graph facing  p.  1 48  was  taken.  The  large  Bog  Myrtle  on  the 
left  bank  behind  the  clump  of  Scirpus  lacustris  is  a  fine 
specimen  of  which  I  am  very  proud.  Round  its  feet  I 
grow  a  collection  of  various  forms  of  Caltha  palustris,  and 
one  of  the  best  is  var.  semi-plena,  not  quite  so  heavy  as  the 
other  doubles.  But  all  of  them  look  well  from  the  windows 
of  the  house  as  seen  growing  on  the  water's  edge  and 
reflected  in  it.  It  is  astonishing  how  many  forms  there 
are  of  this  plant.  Monstrosa,  fl.  pi.,  is  the  earliest  to 
flower  here,  and  makes  a  compact  mass  of  glowing  yellow 
bloom  very  wonderful  when  doubled  by  reflection  in  water  : 
var.  purpurascens  is  a  deeply  coloured  single  form  with 
purple  stems,  very  rich  and  effective.  Tyerman's  var., 
a  large  pale  but  clear  yellow  form,  has  the  most  perfectly 
formed  flowers :  var.  sibirica  has  small  flowers  and  a 
habit  of  rooting  at  the  ends  of  the  long  stalks  that  bear 
them,  so  that  it  soon  founds  a  colony,  and  seems  to  prefer 
to  grow  in  shallow  water,  and  so  carries  out  the  golden 
effect  further  from  the  bank.  A  minor  form  I  found  in 
the  New  Forest  keeps  its  character  here,  and  flowers  late. 
228 


The  Iris  Walk  in  May 

A  somewhat  similar  one  from  Ingleborough,  that  Mr. 
Farrer  led  me  up  to  see  and  advised  me  to  collect, 
is  interesting  in  that  it  has  the  appearance  of  the  rare 
northern  C.  radicans,  with  sagittate  leaves,  but  it  does 
no  radio-ing  as  do  the  true  species  and  var.  sibirica 
and  the  emperor  of  the  whole  family,  C.  polypetala.  I 
do  so  greatly  regret  that  the  introducer  to  Britain  of 
this  last  noble  plant  denies  the  lovely  legend  that  was 
invented  about  it,  and  declares  that  the  Vatican  gardener 
willingly  presented  portions  of  it  to  Miss  H  anbury,  and 
of  course  once  it  had  reached  La  Mortola  everyone  knows 
how  generously  it  would  be  distributed.  It  was  such  a 
good  lie  that  I  still  try  to  believe  it.  I  dare  not  grow 
this  giant  among  the  others,  or  it  would  soon  be  all  giant 
and  no  others,  so  it  has  a  corner  of  the  pond  to  itself. 
The  white  species  of  Caltha,  C.  biflora,  C.  leptosepala,  and 
C.  rotundifolia,  are  in  a  choice  corner  of  the  rock  garden 
as  they  are  such  neat  growers,  but  alas  !  very  stingy  in 
giving  me  any  of  their  Grass  of  Parnassus-like  flowers. 
Right  about  turn  and  back  to  the  river  bank,  please, 
and  on  our  left  we  find  the  Iris  borders  again.  It  is  too 
early  for  their  great  show  of  bloom,  but  the  race  of 
Intermediate  Irises  raised  and  distributed  by  Mr.  Caparne 
of  Guernsey  come  out  in  late  May.  Those  I  like  best 
are  Golden  Fleece,  a  large-flowered  free  form  like  a  soft 
yellow  florentina  ;  Edith,  a  starch  blue  with  darker  shadings, 
and  Ivorine,  creamy  white.  All  of  these  have  very  showy 
orange-coloured  beards.  The  beds  are  mostly  edged  with 
dwarf  Irises,  which  keep  up  a  succession  of  flowers  from 
the  beginning  of  April  to  the  end  of  May.  These  dwarf 
forms  have  been  known  as  pumila  varieties,  but  except 
229 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

for  the  two   pale  blue   forms   that  open  the  season  for 
bearded  Irises,  there  is  not  a  true  pumila  among  them. 

Chamaeiris  has  provided  several  purple  and  yellow 
forms,  and  /.  Reichenbachii  others,  all  of  which  have  un- 
branched  flower  stems.  /.  aphylla  gives  us  innumerable 
shades  with  many  flowered  stems,  and  under  this  name  are 
now  included  the  rich  purple,  blue-bearded  plant  we  used  to 
call  /.  Benacensis,  and  that  strange,  dingy-flowered  thing 
formerly  known  as  /.  pumila gracilis.  The  colour  is  about  as 
lovely  as  the  waistcoat  of  a  defunct  toad,  being  a  pale  buff 
bun-bag  shade,  mottled  irregularly  with  smoky  grey,  but  it 
flowers  with  such  freedom  that  one  can  hardly  see  leaves 
for  flowers,  and  in  the  afternoon  sunlight  a  length  of  it 
planted  as  an  edging  lights  up  in  such  a  charming  way  that 
I  always  enjoy  the  effect  thus  produced,  especially  where 
the  flower-stems  fall  out  over  the  grass  path.  It  is  also 
good  for  cutting,  for  even  the  youngest  buds  will  open  in 
water,  and  they  are  much  lighter  and  more  pleasing  in 
colour  when  opened  in  a  room.  The  best  of  this  section 
is  a  garden-raised  plant  known  as  Leander,  a  really  good 
yellow,  and  very  floriferous  ;  Bluebeard  and  Blanche  an- 
nounce their  colours  in  their  names,  and  are  good  com- 
panions for  Leander.  The  old  blue  germanica  is  a 
wonderfully  useful  plant,  quite  the  best  tempered  and 
most  generous  I  ever  met  for  dry,  overhung,  or  starved 
positions,  therefore  it  appears  in  large  bands  and  masses 
at  the  back  of  these  borders  round  the  old  Yew  trunks,  and 
is  a  grand  bit  of  colour  when  in  full  flower.  The  purple 
form  known  as  Kharput  does  almost  as  well  under  this 
studied  neglect,  but  its  flower-stems  being  taller  it  is  inclined 
to  drive  forward  towards  the  light  and  then  to  fall  over. 
230 


The  Iris  Walk  in  May 

It  has  the  longest  fall  of  any  Iris  I  know.  Here  and  there 
among  the  broad-leaved  flag  Irises  appear  the  long,  narrow 
leaves  of  the  Little  Widow,  La  Vedorina  of  Italian  gardens, 
no  longer  allowed  to  be  an  Iris,  and  obliged  even  to  change 
her  sex  and  reappear  as  Hermodactylus  tuberosus.  What 
a  pity  it  is  that  the  question  of  votes  for  women  cannot  be 
as  easily  settled  by  allowing  Mary  and  Jane  to  appear  on 
the  register  as  Tom  and  Harry.  I  love  this  weird  little 
flower,  made  up  of  the  best  imitation  I  have  ever  seen  in 
vegetable  tissues  of  dull  green  silk  and  black  velvet — in  fact 
it  looks  as  if  it  had  been  plucked  from  the  bonnet  of  some 
elderly  lady  of  quiet  tastes  in  headgear.  I  am  fond  of 
picking  just  enough  for  a  vaseful  to  stand  among  other 
vases  holding  Daffodils  ;  both  the  sombre  Little  Widow 
and  the  gay  bachelor  Daffs  gain  by  the  contrast. 

A  portion  of  one  of  the  Iris  beds  was  taken  out  to  a 
depth  of  three  feet  and  then  treated  as  nearly  as  we  could 
arrange  it  in  imitation  of  the  wonderful  hollow  of  shell- 
sand  among  the  sand-hills  outside  Haarlem  where  the 
celebrated  Regelio-cyclus  Irises  have  their  happy  home 
under  the  protection  of  Mynheer  van  Tubergen.  I  have 
no  shell-sand  and  no  dunes,  but  my  favourite  birdcage 
variety  of  sand  and  the  screening  Yew  trees  are  used  as 
substitutes.  We,  as  well  as  the  Dutch,  have  cows,  so  we 
can  provide  the  same  form  of  nutrition  for  the  Irises  here 
as  that  which  agrees  so  well  with  them  in  Holland.  The 
lower  portion  of  this  hole  we  fill  with  manure  collected 
directly  from  the  meadows  where  the  cows  are  browsing, 
and  then  cover  it  with  about  six  inches  of  the  yellow  sand 
in  which  lie  the  rhizomes  of  the  precious  Irises,  while 
their  roots  can  wander  down  and  feed  fatly.  Artemis, 
231 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Hera,  Charon,  and  Isis  were  very  beautiful  this  May  after 
two  years  in  the  sand,  and  Gladiolus  atroviolaceus,  a  dainty 
Spring-flowering  species  of  lovely  amethyst  colouring, 
shares  their  bed  and  seems  to  enjoy  the  same  treatment. 

I  think  more  could  be  made  of  this  layered  mixture  of 
sand  and  manure  for  voracious  but  easily-rotted  plants. 
I  am  now  trying  a  few  of  the  Oncocyclus  species  here,  and 
in  this,  their  first  year,  we  rejoiced  in  fine  blooms  of 
susiana,  &c.,  but  I  can  hardly  hope  to  solve  the  difficulty 
of  their  cultivation  so  easily. 

Of  course  Irises  are  to  be  found  in  other  parts  of  the 
garden,  but  these  beds  are  so  well  suited  for  those  that 
love  drought  and  heat,  such  as  the  Bearded  Flags,  that 
they  contain  the  main  collection,  and  those  that  prefer  a 
cooler  root-run  find  it  elsewhere.  /.  longipetala  and  its 
near  relations,  for  instance,  are  planted  among  herbaceous 
plants,  and  are  very  useful  for  flowering  in  late  May,  and 
good  for  cutting.  The  Crocus  frame  has  been  found  to 
be  the  only  satisfactory  home  for  /.  Sisyrinchium,  the 
most  widely  distributed  species  of  the  whole  family.  I 
have  collected  it  in  Egypt,  where  it  is  so  abundant  on  the 
lower  flats  of  desert  round  Cairo  that  it  colours  the  land- 
scape with  a  purple  haze  for  miles  from  noon  to  teatime, 
just  while  the  fugacious  flowers  are  open.  It  has  been 
said  that  it  is  the  flower  a  business  man  never  sees,  except 
on  Sundays  and  Whit  Monday,  for  when  brought  to 
England  it  still  adheres  to  its  hours  of  opening  and  closing 
as  punctually  as  a  public-house.  The  little  flowers  are 
very  lovely  when  you  do  see  them,  and  so  many  are  pro- 
duced on  one  scape  that  a  good  succession  is  kept  up.  I 
found  some  charming  white-flowered  ones  in  the  desert, 
232 


Eucalyptus  cordata.     (See  p.  285.) 


The  Iris  Walk  in  May 

but  they  have  long  since  disappeared,  and  only  the  purple 
type  with  its  conspicuous  white-spotted  falls  now  appears 
in  the  frame.  I  have  had  it  sent  to  me  from  Spain,  Malta, 
and  Afghanistan,  but  can  see  no  difference  among  them. 
Iris  mellita  flowered  well  this  year  in  the  rock  garden  in 
early  May.  It  is  very  dwarf,  with  large,  well-formed  flowers 
of  a  dull  rosy  plum  colour,  but  very  distinct  and  pleasing, 
quite  welcome  to  its  sunny  ledge,  and  too  small  in  stature 
to  be  trusted  even  in  the  very  front  of  the  Iris  beds. 

I  hope  in  another  volume  to  lead  you  along  these  beds 
on  a  June  day  among  the  pallidas  and  other  summer 
glories,  but  now  we  will  pass  by  them,  and  try  not  to 
tread  on  the  Fantail  pigeons  that  will  walk  under  our  feet, 
leave  the  Lunatic  Asylum  on  our  left,  gaze  for  a  minute 
or  two  at  the  fine  bole  of  the  isolated  Yew,  the  last  of  the 
row  in  this  direction,  a  pillar  of  clustered  columns  that  I 
am  never  tired  of  admiring,  and  so  past  the  first  of  the 
leaden  ostriches  that  guard  the  bridge  over  the  river,  and 
then  looking  through  the  ivy-clad  arch  into  the  kitchen 
garden  I  hope  the  stretch  of  May-flowering  Tulips  under 
the  wall  will  hold  your  attention  long  enough  to  let  me 
turn  over  a  page  and  begin  a  new  chapter. 


233 


CHAPTER   XV 
Tulips 

BEFORE  I  can  permit  you  to  go  through  the  archway  and 
down  by  the  Tulip  beds  I  want  to  air  some  of  my  views  about 
Tulips  in  general,  so  let  us  lean  on  the  iron  rail  of  the  bridge 
for  a  while.  It  is  a  very  good  resting-place  in  mid-May, 
for  just  then  it  commands  the  two  best  views  of  Tulips  in 
the  garden.  To  our  left  we  can  see  the  long  line  of  choicer 
sorts  growing  in  a  narrow  bed  under  the  fruit  wall.  We 
look  all  down  this  long  bed,  in  which  several  hundreds  of 
varieties  are  grown,  and  seen  through  the  archway  the  mass 
of  colour  is  a  fine  sight  on  a  sunny  day.  We  try  to  group 
them  in  their  classes  and  then  again  by  colours,  so  that 
those  nearest  to  us  are  all  Darwins  and  pink  or  rose 
coloured,  next  come  purple  and  then  crimson  Darwins, 
and  following  them,  further  away  still,  are  Cottage  Tulips, 
and  then  the  English  to  finish  with.  Turning  our  heads 
to  look  straight  along  the  course  of  the  river,  we  see  a 
stretch  of  old  Yew  hedge  on  our  immediate  left  running 
parallel  with  the  river  bank  and  starting  from  the  right- 
hand  side  of  the  arch  that  leads  to  the  kitchen  garden  and 
the  Tulip  beds.  The  river  takes  a  long  curve  here,  and 
about  half-way  along  this  bend  the  Yew  hedge  divides, 
turning  down  at  a  right  angle  to  the  path  and  river,  and 
making  room  for  a  terraced  garden  before  the  correspond- 
234 


Tulips 

ing  second  portion  of  Yew  hedge,  with  a  similarly  down- 
turned  end,  is  reached.  In  my  childhood's  days  the  space 
between  these  two  hedges  was  filled  by  a  steep  grass  slope 
very  suitable  for  rolling  down  when  no  nurse  was  on  guard. 
Then  a  wall  was  built  at  the  foot  of  the  slope  and  filled  in 
behind  with  soil  and  the  Terrace  formed.  It  is  backed  by 
a  low  parapet  with  a  wide  stone  coping,  on  which  a  row 
of  stone  vases  stands  all  the  year  and  a  large  collection  of 
succulent  plants  in  pots  during  the  summer  months. 
Stone  steps  lead  down  to  the  kitchen  garden  at  both  ends, 
and  between  them  are  fifteen  box-edged  beds  and  several 
stone  vases.  A  stone  seat  in  the  centre  is  made  out  of 
portions  of  the  balustrade  of  Old  London  Bridge,  and 
three  of  the  balusters  stand  at  the  heads  of  the  flights  of 
steps  and  bear  stone  vases.  I  found  them  hidden  away 
among  the  shrubs  here,  but  could  only  find  three,  so  one 
has  for  its  fellow  a  stone  group  of  The  Three  Graces  with 
a  stone  vase  on  their  lovely  heads.  These  beds  are  filled 
with  Tulips  for  Spring,  and  when  at  their  best  look  very 
well  viewed  from  the  bridge,  and  reflected  in  the  river. 
They  are  backed  by  flowering  fruit  trees  below  the  wall, 
and  then  the  trees  of  the  park  rise  up  behind  on  the  side 
of  the  hill.  So  rest  here  and  gaze  while  I  tell  you  that  in 
this  garden  the  word  Tulip  stands  only  for  true  species 
and  the  May-flowering  garden  varieties,  for  I  have  long 
ago  lost  every  scrap  of  affection  for  the  early-flowering 
garden  varieties  that  are  still  the  most  conspicuous  Tulips 
in  most  public  parks  and  many  gardens.  I  cannot  afford 
them  here — space  is  too  valuable,  and  though  of  low  price 
they  are  costly  in  the  end,  because  very  few  of  them  find  a 
sufficiently  congenial  home  in  an  English  garden  to  think 
235 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

it  worth  their  while  to  settle  down  and  produce  a  good 
flowering  bulb  for  a  second  year.  They  are  dumpy,  easily 
destroyed  by  the  bad  weather  they  are  almost  certain  to 
meet  with  in  April,  and  need  to  be  renewed  or  largely 
reinforced  annually  from  Dutch-grown  stocks  to  give  a 
really  good  effect.  I  make  an  exception  in  favour  of  a  few 
of  intermediate  season  of  flowering  combined  with  good 
constitution  that  are  neither  dumpy  nor  difficult  to  keep, 
and  these  I  should  not  like  to  be  without.  They  flower 
about  the  last  week  of  April  and  the  first  in  May.  The 
variegated  form  of  Yellow  Prince  that  lives  in  Tom  Tiddler's 
ground  is  one.  White  Swan  is  fairly  tall,  and  bears  a 
beautiful  white  flower  good  for  borders  or  cutting.  Thomas 
Moore  is  an  old  favourite  and  a  charming  shade  of  soft 
orange,  and  Couleur  Cardinal  is  a  fiery  scarlet  when  fully 
open,  but  in  bud  and  when  half  expanded  has  a  wonderful 
plum-like  bloom  on  its  crimson  external  ground-colour.  Mr. 
Van  Waveren  once  told  me  that  he  bought  the  stock  of  this 
Tulip  when  it  was  first  offered.  It  was  one  of  his  earliest 
purchases,  and  he  gave  rather  a  high  price  for  it.  His 
father,  who  was  present  at  the  sale,  asked,  "  What  fool  has 
bought  that  ?  "  and  was  very  angry  when  he  learnt  that  it 
was  his  son.  It  proved  to  be  a  wise  investment,  however, 
and  has  been  for  many  years  the  best  of  all  red  Early  Tulips. 
When  I  can  speak  of  a  plant  as  the  Tulipa  something-or- 
other  it  is  of  course  more  precious  to  my  botanical  mind, 
and  I  should  like  to  grow  every  species  of  Tulipa,  even  the 
starry  green  and  white  early  flowering  ones  such  as  biflora 
and  its  near  relations,  one  of  which  tries  to  make  a  floral 
display  in  December,  but  has  been  so  severely  snubbed 
by  the  Clerk  of  the  Weather  that  I  fear  its  courage  is 
236 


Tulips 


evaporating  and  it  will  end  the  struggle  by  dying  of  a 
broken  heart.  These  look  more  like  some  Star-of-Bethle- 
hem  than  a  Tulip,  so  I  feel  the  real  Tulip  season  commences 
with  the  appearance  of  T.  Kaufmanniana.  Plant  it  six 
inches  deep  at  least,  and  leave  it  alone,  and  every  March  its 
large,  water-lily-shaped  flowers  should  herald  in  the  Tulip 
days.  It  varies  from  white  to  crimson,  and  on  the  way 
can  be  pure  rich  yellow  flushed  outside  with  red.  Many 
varieties  have  been  selected  and  named  ;  aurea  and  coccinea 
the  two  finest  are  very  dazzling  and  wonderful  when 
fully  open  in  the  sunshine.  I  believe  in  all  its  forms  it 
has  the  deep  yellow  base  that  helps  to  make  it  look  like  a 
water-lily  on  land.  T.  dasystemon  has  a  somewhat  similar 
appearance  on  a  smaller  scale.  It  is  dwarf,  and  a  good 
bulb  will  bear  several  flowers  which  are  pure  glistening 
white  when  open,  with  a  very  bright  yellow  centre,  but 
when  closed  they  are  dull  and  green  and  still  look  like 
some  small  Nymphaea  bud. 

It  is  a  charming  plant  for  the  rock  garden,  and  is  easy 
to  grow.  T.  linifolia  and  T.  Maximowiczii  are  so  much 
alike  that  it  is  very  hard  to  distinguish  them,  but  one  need 
not  grumble  at  whichever  comes  under  either  name,  for 
both  are  brilliant  scarlet  with  a  black  base,  of  beautiful 
salver  shape  when  open,  and  have  the  neatest  possible 
habit  and  narrow  leaves  with  waved  margins.  They  do 
not  increase  much,  but  keep  in  health  for  many  years  if 
occasionally  lifted  and  cleaned  by  the  removal  of  some  of 
their  old  jackets.  A  very  curious  tuft  of  woolly  hairs  orna- 
ments the  top  of  the  bulb,  and  is  worth  noticing.  Batalinii 
is  very  closely  related  to  these  two,  and  differs  chiefly  in 
the  colour  of  its  flowers,  which  are  of  a  lovely  soft  butter- 
237 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

yellow,  but  also  in  increasing  well  by  offsets.  Seedlings 
vary  in  colour  a  good  deal  :  I  have  had  buff,  salmon,  and 
orange-coloured  forms,  and  one  almost  as  scarlet  as  linifolia, 
but  the  base  was  a  light  slate  grey,  not  nearly  so  deep  in 
colour  as  in  linifolia.  It  is  quite  possible,  though,  that  these 
colour  varieties  may  be  hybrids.  One  of  them  was  selected 
some  years  ago  and  named  Sunset,  and  received  an  award 
at  a  Temple  Show,  and  I  was  delighted  when  I  found  its 
exact  counterpart  among  some  of  my  seedlings.  T.  Batalinii 
is  one  of  the  few  Tulips  that  will  sow  itself  in  the  rock 
garden.  T.  firaestans  is  a  great  beauty  of  pure  scarlet,  and 
when  robust  bears  two  or  more  flowers  on  a  stem.  Two 
varieties  of  it  are  known,  and  the  earliest  and  best  is  called 
var.  Tubergeniana.  It  makes  such  an  early  appearance  above- 
ground  that  it  is  best  planted  in  a  sheltered  position  facing 
west  or  south-west,  where  it  will  not  be  tempted  into  growth 
too  soon,  and  the  morning  sunshine  will  not  fall  on  its  downy 
leaves  while  they  are  still  frozen.  I  have  a  clump  in  the 
rock  garden  sheltered  by  some  dwarf  conifers  that  in  most 
seasons  flares  out  in  its  glowing  vermilion  before  one  has 
such  a  Pomegranate-blossom  colouring  elsewhere  in  the 
open.  T.  primulina  is  a  refined  little  many-flowered  species, 
and  very  charming  when  open  in  sunshine,  but  is  rather 
shy  about  showing  off  its  charms,  and  too  green  outside 
to  make  much  show  when  closed.  T.  stellata  is  the 
Himalayan  representative  of  the  well-known  T.  Clusiana, 
the  Lady  Tulip,  and  like  it  runs  about  too  much  at  the 
root  making  small  bulbs,  and  therefore  seldom  sends  up 
enough  flowers.  When  they  do  appear  they  are  very 
lovely,  star-shaped  and  of  a  soft  sulphur  shade,  with  a 
deep  red  base  and  rosy  tints  on  the  outside  of  the  segments, 
238 


Tulips 


T.  oculus  solis  is  rare  in  English  gardens,  but  grows  plenti- 
fully round  Florence,  and  it  was  from  thence  I  obtained  it. 
It  appears  to  be  impossible  to  buy  the  true  plant  from 
nurserymen,  as  T.  praecox  is  so  largely  grown  under  the 
other's  name.  Praecox  is  a  good  thing,  but  is  almost 
always  damaged  in  our  gardens  by  the  frosts  that  worry 
its  large,  early  flowers.  It  is  taller  than  oculus  solis,  and 
has  lighter  red  flowers,  which  are  greenish  on  the  outside 
of  the  three  outer  segments  and  wider  than  they  are  long. 
The  true  oculus  solis  is  deep  crimson,  and  has  long,  pointed 
segments  ;  the  basal  eye  is  composed  of  a  greater  pro- 
portion of  black  and  less  of  yellow  than  that  of  praecox,  and 
it  is  also  wise  enough  to  wait  for  finer  weather  to  open 
its  flowers  in. 

I  must  not  attempt  to  describe  all  the  species  of 
Tulipa  I  tuck  away  in  the  rock  garden  and  choice  corners 
of  sheltered  beds,  but  cannot  leave  out  two  which  are 
special  favourites.  T.  Fosteriana  is  one,  and  so  brilliantly 
coloured  that  at  times  I  think  it  almost  too  gorgeous. 
The  vivid  scarlet,  with  the  pure  yellow  or  black  and 
yellow  of  the  eye,  is  absolutely  dazzling  in  the  sunlight, 
and  the  flowers  are  so  very  large  for  their  height  ;  but 
a  long  bed  of  it  in  Zwanenburg  Nursery  at  Haarlem 
is  one  of  the  most  marvellous  floral  displays  I  have  ever 
seen.  It  is  none  too  vigorous  here,  and  has  to  be  care- 
fully nursed  in  the  peach-house  border,  where  only  rare 
or  tender  treasures  are  admitted.  I  will  close  the  list  of 
species  with  the  latest  of  all,  Tulipa  Sprengeri,  an  elegant 
and  tall  species  with  crimson-scarlet  flowers  ;  but  it  is 
always  rather  sad  to  see  the  first  one  open,  for  it  means 
the  close  of  the  Tulip  season,  and  that  a  day  or  two  onward 
239 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

the  hot  sun    and  old    age  will  tell  on   the  Darwin  and 
English  Tulips  that  still  remain,  and  it  will  be  time  to  go 
round  snapping  off  the  fat  green  seedpods.      It  is  rather 
fascinating  to  place  a  forefinger  on  the  stalk,  and  then, 
pressing  it  towards  you,  bend  over  the  seed  head  with  your 
thumb  in  the  opposite  direction,  until  you  feel  the  sudden 
snap  with  which  the  juicy  stalk  breaks,  and  it  is  good  to 
think  that  you  are  thereby  aiding  the  ripening  of  a  fat 
bulb  for  next  season,  but  I   much  prefer  gently  opening 
the  segments  of  a  half-expanded  new  variety  to  see  what 
sort  of  eye  it  has,  and  feeling  that  its  full  beauty  is  still  to 
come.     Well,  "them's  my  sentiments"  about  earlies  and 
species,  and  now  we  had  better  move  on  and  look  at  the 
May  flowerers  before  snapping-off  time  comes  upon  us. 
First,  then,  to  the  Terrace  beds.      The  shape  of  the  first 
one  we  come  to  is  a  semicircle,  and  it  is  bounded  on  the 
straight  side  by  a  dry  wall  built  up  by  the  side  of  the 
flight  of  steps  and  which  has  a  cascade  of  Rosa  Wichuraiana 
hanging  down  over  the  stones  and  mingling  with  Othon- 
nopsis  cheirifolia,  a  good,  grey-leaved,  succulent  plant  that 
thrives  in  this  dry  garden  in  a  way  that  often  astonishes 
people  from  warmer  but  moister  climates.     It  is  a  large 
bed,  and  takes  a  good  deal  of  filling,  so  we  use  three  kinds  of 
Tulips  of  orange  shades,  La  Merveille,  Billietiana  "  Sunset," 
and  Gesneriana  aurantiaca,  but,  excepting  this  and  the  two 
central  beds,  all  the  others  are  filled  with  one  variety  only. 
Thus  the  next  contains  Mr.   Farncombe   Sanders.     Tall, 
and  of  dazzling  rose-scarlet  with  immense  blooms,  I  do  not 
know  a  better  Tulip  for  distant  effect,  and  can  only  charge 
him  with  one  fault,  and  that  is,  he  loses  his  head  in  sudden 
danger,  for  a  heavy  shower  coming  quickly  after  sunshine 
240 


Four  White,  Rayless  Violas  : 
Purity 
Mrs   H.  Pearce 


Mad.  A.  Gray 
Snowflake 


Tulips 


catches  the  immense  flowers  half  open  and  weights  them 
with  water  till  they  bend  over  and  snap,  and  I  have  seen 
a  bed  decimated  in  this  manner  in  a  few  minutes.  A  bed 
of  Clara  Butt  comes  next,  and  her  lovely,  soft,  warm  pink 
blends  well  with  the  scarlet  on  one  side  and  the  deep  rich 
maroon-crimson  of  King  Harold  in  the  next  bed.  The 
fine  old  scarlet  Gesneriana,  with  its  wonderful  blue  eye,  is 
one  of  the  most  effective  of  all  Tulips,  and  so  fills  two 
beds  on  this  terrace,  and  looks  very  well  between  King 
Harold  and  a  bed  of  the  still  deeper  brown-purple  of 
Philippe  de  Comines,  described  in  bulb  lists  as  velvety- 
black.  Next  we  come  to  the  two  circular  central  beds  on 
either  side  of  a  fine  tripodal  stone  vase,  and  these  are 
filled  with  two  yellow  varieties  in  alternating  rings.  Retro- 
flexa  flowers  first  and  goes  over  rather  too  soon,  so 
Parisian  Beauty,  which  is  a  later  bloomer,  then  takes  up 
its  duties  and  keeps  the  yellow  beds  bright  to  the  end.  We 
have  generally  had  a  bed  of  La  Noire  for  the  next,  but 
although  it  looks  well  next  to  the  yellow,  it  is  too  dark  to 
be  effective  from  a  distance,  and  most  likely  will  be  re- 
placed by  something  lighter  next  season.  Europe  is  my 
favourite  of  the  glowing  orange-salmon  shades  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  few  Darwins  with  a  pure  white  base,  and  the  bed 
devoted  to  it  is  a  lovely  sight  when  full  of  its  flowers. 
The  next  bed  we  thought  rather  a  bold  venture  when  we 
first  planned  it,  for  we  were  half  in  doubt  whether  the 
cool  lilac  tint  of  Erguste  would  look  well  between  the  two 
salmon  scarlets,  Europe  of  the  last  bed  and  Laurentia  of 
the  next,  which  are  very  similar  in  general  outside  appear- 
ance, but  Laurentia  differs  in  possessing  a  rim  of  pale  blue 
round  the  white  of  the  base.  However,  we  were  delighted 

24I  Q 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

with  the  effect  both  when  standing  among  the  beds  and 
also  from  a  distance.  I  have  long  preached  that  Erguste 
is  the  best  of  the  lilac  Darwins,  but  many  people  think 
otherwise  and  cry  up  The  Rev.  Ewbank.  I  must  confess 
that  I  am  rather  particular,  and  I  dislike  any  Darwin  that 
has  a  paler  edge  to  the  segments,  and  a  dingy  grey  look 
about  the  central  darker  portion,  and  I  find  both  of  these 
unpleasing  features  in  Ewbank.  To  my  mind  they  make 
it  look  faded  and  weary  even  when  young,  whereas  Erguste 
is  as  nearly  self-coloured  throughout  as  one  could  expect, 
and  looks  as  clean  and  fresh  as  a  newly  washed  and 
starched  lilac  sunbonnet,  until  the  segments  are  ready  to 
drop.  All  these  lilac  Darwins  seem  to  inherit  one  fault 
with  their  colour,  they  are  more  open  to  flattery  than 
their  red  brethren,  and  the  west  winds  of  Spring  can  per- 
suade them  that  they  are  indispensable  and  the  world  is 
waiting  for  them,  and  that  they  must  hurry  up  at  once,  and 
they  generally  push  out  leaves  sooner  than  they  should. 

The  flowers  of  purple  and  lilac  Darwins,  as  a  rule, 
open  before  those  of  other  colours,  but  that  could  be 
forgiven  them,  and  their  particular  foolishness  and  un- 
forgiveable  sin  lies  in  starting  into  growth  too  soon. 
Last  winter  was  very  bad  for  them  in  that  respect.  The 
west  wind  roused  them  in  their  beds  before  Christmas, 
and  in  a  lying  spirit  declared  it  was  half  past  winter  and 
time  to  get  up  ;  their  hot  water  was  provided  by  warm 
showers,  and  they  popped  their  noses  out  of  the  curtains 
and  found  it  was  so  pleasant  and  muggy  that  they  grew 
away  as  fast  as  they  could,  and  so  had  large,  tender 
leaves  and  exposed  buds  by  the  end  of  March  that  would 
have  done  them  credit  a  month  later  ;  all  those  bitter  winds 
242 


Tulips 


and  cold  hail-showers  of  last  April  bruised  and  worried 
them,  and  large  patches  of  decay  began  to  show  themselves, 
and  then  the  dreadful  ravages  of  the  disease  that  Tulip- 
growers  call  "  fire  "  spread  through  the  bed,  and  ate  into 
the  flower-stems,  and  robbed  us  of  the  fine  effect  we  had 
enjoyed  the  season  before.  Another  bed  of  Gesneriana 
follows  Laurentia,  and  then  one  of  elegans  alba,  one  of  the 
most  lovely  of  Spring  flowers.  I  love  the  pointed  shape 
of  this  and  its  sisters,  elegans,  fulgens,  and  retroflexa. 
They  have  been  named  as  though  they  were  wild  specific 
forms,  but  I  was  told  by  a  Dutch  grower  that  he  had 
spoken  to  an  old  man  who  remembered  the  first  appear- 
ance of  all  four  of  them  in  one  seed-bed  in  Holland. 
It  is  supposed  that  they  are  crosses  between  T.  acuminata 
and  some  other  form  of  Gesneriana,  the  pointed  reflexing 
character  of  the  flowers  coming  from  acuminata,  which 
from  its  curious,  long,  slender  segments  has  gained  the 
name  of  the  Chinese  Tulip — I  imagine  because  they  suggest 
the  finger-nails  of  a  mandarin.  Elegans  alba  is  much  more 
like  a  white  form  of  fulgens  than  of  elegans  in  its  greater 
height,  later  time  of  flowering,  and  less  recurved  segments. 
These  are  pure  white,  beautifully  edged  with  the  finest 
imaginable  wire-edge  line  of  crimson.  It  is  very  effective 
in  this  bed,  but  equally  good  for  planting  in  borders  among 
herbaceous  plants.  The  last  of  the  Terrace  beds  has  for 
many  years  been  filled  with  the  white-eyed  Gesneriana  that 
has  two  names,  Gesneriana  albo  oculata  and  Rosalind.  It 
is  rather  later  than  the  others  on  the  Terrace,  and  I  must 
confess  of  too  blue  a  rose  colour  to  go  anywhere  but  at 
the  end,  and  I  expect  you  can  guess  that  the  white  bed 
is  placed  next  to  it  on  purpose  to  cut  it  off  from  the 
243 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

scarlet  and  salmon  shades.  Everybody  admires  it  when 
thus  isolated,  especially  with  the  evening  sunlight  shining 
through  it,  but  in  all  lights  the  purity  of  its  white  base, 
with  a  wee  touch  of  ivory  in  its  very  eye,  is  wonderfully 
satisfying  against  the  vivid  rose  segments.  It  appears  to 
have  one  of  the  best  constitutions  of  all,  and  once  pur- 
chased should  never  fail  to  fill  its  allotted  space  and  pro- 
vide offsets  for  growing  on  as  well.  All  these  beds  have 
to  be  lifted  annually  to  make  way  for  summer  bedding 
plants,  and  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  get  the  Tulips  ripened 
off  as  early  as  possible.  So  as  soon  as  the  segments  fall 
I  snap  off  the  seed-heads,  and  it  is  wonderful  how  soon 
one  can  lift  after  the  loss  of  their  seedpods  has  removed 
all  inducement  to  keep  their  roots  actively  at  work.  We 
apply  the  old  test  of  Tulip-growers  of  bygone  days,  and  as 
soon  as  we  can  curl  a  flower-stem  round  a  finger  without 
its  snapping  feel  it  safe  to  lift  the  bulbs  and  lay  them  in  a 
dry  bed  of  light  soil  to  ripen  off.  With  this  treatment  we 
can  generally  rely  on  sound,  large  bulbs  for  another  season, 
but  we  keep  a  certain  number  of  offsets  planted  up  in  the 
kitchen  garden  to  draw  upon  should  one  of  our  Terrace 
varieties  fail  in  size  or  number.  So  let  us  turn  down  the 
steps  at  this  end  of  the  Terrace  and  go  past  these  beds  of 
offsets.  Many  varieties  we  shall  see  are  flowering  freely 
from  the  small  bulbs,  but  though  as  a  matter  of  course  the 
blossoms  are  not  so  fine  as  those  from  full-sized  ones,  they 
are  very  useful  for  cutting.  Turning  to  the  left,  we  pass 
the  Strawberry  beds,  and  then  the  range  of  vineries  and 
the  Crocus  frames  we  visited  in  February,  and  so  reach 
the  wall  and  the  long  bed  of  Tulips.  I  have  generally 
planted  it  in  alternate  rows  of  Tulips  and  Carnations  for 
244 


Tulips 

economy's  sake,  on  the  same  principle  as  the  excuse  of  the 
child  rebuked  for  extravagance  in  eating  butter  and  jam 
on  one  piece  of  bread,  that  it  was  economical  to  make  the 
same  slice  do  for  both.  But  this  year  we  tried  separating 
the  quondam  partners,  a::d  were  rather  pleased  at  being 
able  to  harvest  the  Tulips  earlier  than  Carnation-layering 
time,  and  to  manure  and  crop  the  vacant  ground  to  get  it 
ready  for  next  season's  bulbs.  By  this  route  we  come  first 
to  the  English  varieties,  the  very  £lite  of  the  Tulip  world, 
for  after  the  Dutch,  Flemish,  and  French  florists  had  de- 
veloped the  Tulip  to  a  certain  standard,  the  English  florists 
took  it  in  hand,  and  became  much  more  exacting  in  their 
requirements,  and  succeeded  in  producing  a  strain  of  more 
symmetrical,  cup-shaped  flowers  with  purer  bases  and 
ground  colours  than  had  been  known  before. 

The  love  of  the  English  Tulip  may  be  an  acquired 
taste,  but  I  am  sure  it  is  really  good  taste,  and  just  as  an 
art  connoisseur  will  turn  away  from  showy,  meretricious 
objects  to  a  really  fine  piece  of  work  even  though  it  may 
need  looking  into  and  handling  to  appreciate  its  best  points, 
so  will  anyone  who  compares  many  Tulips,  and  has  access 
to  really  well-grown  English  florists'  varieties,  grow  to  love 
the  beautiful  proportions  and  delicate  featherings  or  rich 
contrasts  of  the  best  of  them  more  than  any  gorgeous 
display  of  Darwins.  Not  that  I  wish  in  any  way  to  dis- 
parage Darwin  Tulips  for  garden  display,  or  even  for 
cutting  for  large  vases  in  halls  and  large  rooms.  But  one 
could  not  hang  the  walls  of  a  picture  gallery  with  Limoges 
enamels  instead  of  pictures,  nor  banish  the  Apollo  Belvedere 
from  his  pedestal  in  the  Vatican  to  make  room  for  a  Japanese 
netsuke,  and  so  there  are  no  English  Tulips  on  the  Terrace, 
245 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

but  here  they  are  at  the  end  of  the  Tulip  beds  to  linger 
over  and  enjoy,  and  to  cut  for  some  small,  good  old 
glass  vases  for  the  dinner-table,  or  the  writing-table  in 
my  own  sanctum,  and  for  these  purposes  nothing  lilia- 
ceous can  vie  with  them.  I  am  sorry  to  say  they  are 
not  easy  to  grow  in  their  best  form  here  ;  the  Breeders 
break  too  easily,  and  some  of  the  finer  Roses  or 
Bybloemen  become  flushed  or  coarse,  but  a  few  good 
flowers  appear  each  year  among  them  and  make  us  hope 
to  do  better  next  time.  Let  us  examine  one  or  two  care- 
fully, that  in  case  you  need  conversion  to  a  true  love  for 
them  I  may  have  a  chance  of  effecting  it.  I  wonder  how 
deeply  you  are  steeped  in  Tulip  lore  ?  If  you  prefer  a 
Rose  fr.  to  a  Rose  fld.  please  skip  the  next  page,  but  if 
you  do  not  understand  those  mystic  words  pray  read  on. 
Now  I  will  pick  this  exquisitely  soft-rose  coloured  one.  It 
is  labelled  Annie  McGregor,  Breeder.  Notice  first  the 
proportions :  in  outline  it  is  a  sphere  with  the  upper  one- 
third  removed  :  see  how  smoothly  rounded  the  edges  of  the 
segments  are,  how  clean  and  white  the  base  is,  and  how 
distinctly  it  ends  and  the  rose  colour  commences.  This 
is  the  form  in  which  this  beautiful  Tulip  first  appeared 
when  it  flowered  in  the  seed-bed  many  years  ago,  and  it 
and  one  called  Mabel  are  still  the  best  Rose  Breeders 
known.  You  think  Breeder  is  an  ugly  name  for  such  a 
lovely  flower  ?  Perhaps  it  is,  but  it  has  a  meaning,  and 
tells  us  how  that  at  one  time  these  self-coloured  Tulips 
were  not  valued  at  all  for  their  pure  self-colour,  but  only 
because  they  were  the  possible  parents  of  striped  forms. 
For  all  seedling  florists'  Tulips  are  self-coloured  as  seedlings, 
and  remain  so  for  a  number  of  years,  seldom  less  than  six 
246 


Tulips 


but  sometimes  many  more,  then  a  few  bulbs  of  the  stock 
are  liable  to  suddenly  change  ("  break "  is  the  technical 
term  for  it),  and  the  old  ground-colour  then  appears  as 
stripes  on  whichever  colour,  white  or  yellow,  was  most 
prevalent  in  the  eye  or  base  of  the  self-coloured  Breeder. 
Now  look  at  the  next  row  ;  it  is  labelled  Annie  McGregor 
Rose  fld.,  and  you  will  see  that  though  exactly  similar  in 
shape  and  size,  and  with  the*same  white  eye,  this  form  is 
practically  a  white  Tulip  with  finely-pencilled, rose-coloured 
featherings  round  the  edges  of  the  segments,  and  up  the 
centre  of  each  there  is  a  broad  band,  called  a  flame,  of  the 
same  rose  shade.  This  is  the  broken  form  of  the  same 
Tulip,  Annie  McGregor,  and  would  be  shown  in  the  class 
for  Flamed  Roses  :  now  you  know  what  fld.  means.  The 
next  row  is  labelled  similarly,  but  has  "  fr.  "  instead  of  "  fld." 
at  the  end,  and  you  can  see  at  a  glance  that  the  flowers  are 
much  the  same  as  the  last,  but  the  segments  are  pure  white 
except  for  the  featherings  of  rose-colour  round  their  edges, 
and  so  are  Feathered  Roses  this  time,  and  I  may  tell  you 
that  you  are  very  lucky  if  you  do  find  this  last  one  as 
I  describe  it,  for  it  is  precious  seldom  I  can  manage  to 
grow  a  perfect  feather  in  this  garden.  Higher  up  the  bed 
you  will  find  Byb.  fld.  on  labels,  and  will  notice  that  here 
again  we  may  have  the  same  variety  as  a  lilac  self  with  a 
white  base  or  as  a  white  flower  feathered,  or  feathered  and 
flamed,  with  some  shade  of  lilac  or  purple  instead  of  rose, 
and  these  bear  the  old  Dutch  name  of  Bybloemen.  Further 
on  we  have  some  selfs,  purple,  chocolate,  or  rich  red  and 
almost  scarlet,  but  in  all  of  these  the  bases  are  bright 
yellow  instead  of  white,  and  when  they  break  the  ground- 
colour becomes  yellow  with  marvellous,  rich  tones  of  copper, 
247 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

bronze,  black,  brown,  or  crimson,  mixing  or  lying  alongside, 
to  form  the  feathers  and  flames.  This  group  bears  the 
name  Bizarre,  and  they  also  can  be  Breeders  or  fr.  or  fld. 
Sir  Joseph  Paxton  is  one  of  the  best,  and  a  good  instance 
of  a  flower  that  can  appear  in  all  three  forms  of  a  Bizarre. 
The  flamed  Sir  Joseph  is  one  of  my  greatest  favourites,  and 
the  colouring  is  like  some  grand  old  piece  of  buhl,  and  I 
keep  on  turning  such  a  flower  round  and  round  to  try  and 
settle  which  of  its  segments  is  the  most  perfectly  coloured 
and  the  best  to  place  towards  me  as  I  dine  or  write.  I 
believe  the  love  for  the  English  Tulip  will  some  day  revive 
and  perhaps  grow  into  a  rage,  and  that  the  noble  little  band 
who  keep  up  its  cultivation  and  the  Royal  National  Tulip 
Society  are  doing  a  great  work  for  future  gardeners.  How 
many  conversions  has  this  sermon  produced  ?  The  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  one  is  the  posting  of  a  letter  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Society  (W.  Peters,  Farcet  House,  Cam- 
bridge) asking  for  full  particulars  and  election  as  a  member, 
and  help  in  the  shape  of  a  few  bulbs  to  start  your  collection. 
After  the  rows  of  English  end  we  come  to  Cottage  Tulips, 
a  very  elastic  term,  for  it  includes  all  the  late  kinds  that 
are  not  true  species,  Darwins  or  florists'  forms.  I  have 
too  large  a  collection  to  be  fully  described  here. 

The  beautiful  illustration  (facing  p.  176)  shows  two  of 
my  favourites,  but  it  is  hard  to  pick  out  any  and  leave  out 
others  in  such  a  wonderful  range  of  colours  and  forms. 
Walter  T.  Ware  is  certainly  the  best  deep  yellow,  Louis  XIV 
is  a  wonderful  combination  of  rich  plum-purple  and  golden 
bronze,  and  looks  as  though  shot  with  the  two  colours.  Don 
Pedro  is  a  rich  brown,  John  Ruskin  long  and  egg-shaped 
and  apricot-orange  shaded  with  rose  and  lilac,  and  as  if  that 
248 


Tulips 


were  not  enough  has  an  edge  of  yellow  just  the-  shade  of 
a  beaten-up  egg.  Sir  Harry  is  a  lovely  mauve-pink,  and 
breaks  into  a  still  more  wonderful  thing  known  as  Striped 
Beauty,  in  which  the  original  rosy-lilac  shade  has  crimson 
and  cerise  stripes  added  to  it.  There  are  many  kinds  of 
various  shades  of  yellow,  reckoned  as  cottage  varieties,  and 
some  of  them  have  been  already  mentioned  as  forming  part 
of  the  golden  store  of  Tom  Tiddler's  ground,  but  a  reserve 
fund  of  some  of  the  best  is  kept  here.  Pure  whites  are  scarce; 
Albion  and  L'Innocence  are  the  best,  but  Picotee  with  a 
rose-coloured  edge,  and  Carnation  with  more  and  deeper 
rose  colour,  are  exquisite  pale  flowers,  and  this  class  includes 
the  two  varieties  of  the  Green  Tulip,  T.  mriciiflora  praecox 
and  tardiva ;  the  former  and  earlier  one  is  the  best  with  a 
larger  flower,  and  of  a  better  and  softer  green  ;  the  other 
has  a  wide  yellow  edge  to  its  segments  and  is  not  so  pleas- 
ing. The  early  one  is  very  pretty  when  cut  and  grouped 
with  rose-coloured  Tulips.  Then  we  reach  the  Darwins, 
and  the  first  few  rows  here  are  like  the  horrid  child's  sweet 
and  were  pink  once,  but  have  broken  and  so  become  what 
the  Dutch  nurserymen  have  christened  Rembrandt  Tulips. 
Some  of  them  are  very  beautiful  with  bold  splashes  of 
crimson  and  scarlet  on  a  white  ground,  but  when  they 
break  they  always  lose  a  few  inches  of  their  stature,  and  I 
am  afraid  some  of  their  grand  sturdy  constitution  goes  too, 
for  they  never  seem  as  healthy  as  their  breeder  forms,  the 
Darwiris.  Among  the  red  Darwins  Isis  stands  out  as  the 
very  brightest  and  best.  La  Noire  is  the  nearest  to  black 
I  grow,  and  quite  as  near  as  one  wants  a  flower  to  be. 
Margaret  is  the  palest  pink  I  care  about.  Nigrette  is  a 
curious  and  beautiful  brown  red,  the  Bishop  the  best  bright 
249 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

purple  and  Faust  the  best  dark  purple.  In  among  these 
various  kinds,  and  always  in  what  we  consider  the  choicest, 
cosiest  place,  irrespective  of  what  are  its  neighbours,  we 
plant  my  best  beloved  of  all  Tulips,  a  wonderful  old  Dutch 
variety  called  Zomerschoon.  It  has  a  groundwork  of  old 
ivory  or  softest  primrose  heavily  striped  and  flamed  with  a 
glorious,glowing  salmon-red;  the  base  is  sulphur  yellow,and 
in  the  sunlight  casts  a  primrose  glow  over  the  whole  interior 
of  the  flower,  especially  in  a  newly-opened  blossom.  It  is 
seen  at  its  best  in  the  morning  sunlight,  and  when  the  first 
blossoms  open  I  find  it  hard  to  tear  myself  away  from  them, 
so  intensely  do  I  enjoy  the  glow  of  the  blend  of  salmon 
and  primrose  tints  in  their  cups.  As  the  flowers  age  the 
sulphur  fades  to  ivory  white  and  the  red  markings  deepen 
a  good  deal :  they  are  still  beautiful,  but  not  so  marvellously 
glowing  and  subtle  as  in  the  day-old  blossoms.  It  is  a 
very  old  Tulip,  and  I  have  a  rather  poor  figure  of  it  in  a 
Dutch  book  dated  1794,  but  it  has  always  been  scarce,  as 
it  does  not  increase  so  fast  as  others,  and  so  has  always 
been  rather  high  in  price,  but  the  last  two  years  have  seen  a 
change,  and  now  eighteen  pence  will  buy  a  good  bulb  of  it. 
The  tallest  of  all  Tulips  is  T.fulgens,  one  of  the  pointed- 
petalled  set  I  have  already  mentioned.  Three  feet  of  stem 
I  should  say  would  be  its  average  height.  It  is  a  glowing 
pure  crimson,  and  its  beautiful,  soft-yellow  base  is  too  pale 
to  be  open  to  an  accusation  of  gaudiness  even  when  seen 
by  the  side  of  so  bright  a  crimson.  Some  years  ago  I 
planted  a  clump  among  some  patches  of  Iris  ochroleuca,  and 
the  effect  of  the  great,  sword-shaped  leaves  of  the  Iris 
among  the  tall  Tulips  was  very  good,  but  the  group  had  to 
be  removed  to  make  way  for  a  new  Yew  hedge,  and  I  have 
250 


Tulips 


always  meant  to  make  another  similar  planting,  but  time 
and  space  have  not  allowed  it  as  yet.  This  grand  Tulip  is 
good  almost  anywhere,  and  very  suitable  in  a  bed  of  tall 
herbaceous  plants,  as  it  produces  a  grand  mass  of  colour  in 
May,  and  is  well  out  of  the  way  before  Delphiniums  and 
other  tall  plants  are  clamouring  for  head-room. 

Like  other  Tulips  planted  in  groups  in  the  permanent 
borders,  it  requires  lifting  and  thinning  every  second  or 
third  year,  or  the  bulbs  scrouge  each  other,  and  grow 
smaller  and  weaker  until  nothing  but  leaves  appear,  and 
Tulips  are  not  worth  space  as  foliage  plants. 


25* 


CHAPTER   XVI 

My  Rock  Garden 

MY  rock  garden  is  a  home-made  affair,  that  is  to  say  I 
planned,  built,  and  planted  it,  and  have  had  the  chief  hand 
in  caring  for  it  for  twenty  years.  When  I  say  built  I  mean 
I  chose  out  the  stone  for  each  position,  helped  to  move  it 
and  generally  gave  it  the  final  lift  or  shove,  or  jumped  up 
and  down  on  the  top  of  it,  to  fix  it  in  place  just  as  I 
wanted  it,  but,  of  course,  several  heads  and  hands  helped 
me,  especially  with  the  large  blocks  and  the  excavating 
and  shovelling  up  of  soil.  It  was  formed  a  bit  at  a  time, 
and  always  under  the  belief  that  the  present  piece  of  work 
was  to  be  the  very  utmost  extent  that  was  likely  to  be 
undertaken,  and  so  of  necessity  it  possesses  many  faults. 
I  can  see  that  had  it  been  planned  as  a  whole  I  could  have 
greatly  improved  it,  and  as  the  oldest  portion,  which  dates 
from  1893,  was  my  first  piece  of  work  of  the  kind,  I  have 
learnt  something  since  then.  It  is  a  rock  garden  but  by 
no  means  an  alpine  garden,  for  though  alpine  plants  have 
a  first  choice  of  places  I  have  always  been  ready  to  plant 
any  bush  or  even  tree  in  it,  that  I  think  will  grow  better 
for  the  advantages  of  drainage  and  protection  the  chosen 
site  will  afford  it.  I  often  say  that  I  must  reserve  a  new 
wing  for  choice  alpines  only  or  clear  out  an  older  range 
for  them,  then  I  come  along  with  a  choice  young  Euca- 
lyptus in  a  pot,  or  one  of  the  giants  of  the  Eryngium 
family  such  as  E.  serra  or  E.  Lasseauxii,  or  some  other 
252 


My  Rock  Garden 


son  of  Anak ;  a  suitable  cosy  nook  is  given  to  the  poor 
homeless  waif,  and  so  long  as  plants  flourish  I  cannot 
bring  myself  to  destroy  their  happiness.  So  do  not  ex- 
pect the  orthodox  grouping  of  dwarf  alpines,  or  even  care- 
fully-stratified stones,  for  I  have  never  hesitated  to  stand 
a  large,  flat  block  up  on  end  tp  form  a  miniature  south 
wall  for  tender  sun-lovers,  but  I  have  always  had  the  sense 
to  fill  in  the  back  of  such  an  one  with  soil  and  continue 
the  rise  above  the  stone,  and  so  treated  the  bank  looks 
natural  enough.  I  have  used  Kentish  rag  throughout, 
and  until  my  ship  comes  home  with  a  cargo  of  more 
guineas  than  I  know  what  to  do  with  I  shall  not  change 
it  for  mountain  limestone.  The  rag  weathers  well  here, 
grows  as  much  moss  as  I  care  about,  and  tones  to  a  good 
soft  grey  colour ;  it  has  enough  sandstone  facing  on  some 
blocks  to  make  a  little  crumbling  surface  for  some  of  the 
plants  to  root  into,  and  yet  is  solid  enough  to  resist  the 
weather.  It  may  flake  a  little  its  first  winter,  but  not 
sufficiently  to  do  any  harm. 

Much  of  the  rock  garden  is  built  on  a  steep  clay  bank 
that  Sir  Hugh  Myddelton  constructed  three  hundred  years 
ago  to  support  this  loop  of  the  New  River  and  so  carry  it 
round  the  valley  instead  of,  as  now,  across  it  in  pipes : 
that  means  the  upper  edge  of  my  rock  garden  must  be  a 
straight  line  bounded  by  the  walk  along  the  riverside.  A 
second  straight  walk  had  been  made  along  the  foot  of  the 
bank,  and  this  also  has  had  to  be  respected,  but  a  triangular 
portion  of  the  meadow  was  cut  off,  in  two  bites  and  with 
several  years  between  each  mouthful,  and  forms  the  main 
expanse  of  rock  garden  and  saves  it  from  the  stiff  outline  that 
253 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

would  have  been  the  result  of  only  using  the  bank.  We 
reach  the  newest  portion  first,  a  good  long  stretch  of  bank 
between  the  river  above  and  the  meadow  below.  In  the 
centre  of  this  is  the  fish-hatchery  moraine  bed  I  have  de- 
scribed in  a  former  chapter,  and  as  the  whole  bank  faces 
due  south  such  a  sheltered  home  for  new  plants  has  filled 
up  with  marvellous  rapidity.  I  was  obliged  to  plant  a 
screen  of  Hollies  and  other  evergreens  at  the  top  by  the 
river-walk,  as  otherwise  there  would  be  no  intervening  pro- 
tection between  the  rock  garden  and  the  North  Pole.  This 
bank  has  had  a  year  to  get  covered,  and  this  May  morn- 
ing is  full  of  flowers. 

From  a  long  way  off  one  sees  a  glowing  orange  patch 
that  at  close  quarters  turns  out  to  be  Meconopsis  hetero- 
phylla,  the  only  member  of  the  family  that  comes  from 
America.  It  is  hard  to  beat  when  well  grown,  but  an 
annual,  and  unless  self-sown  is  difficult  to  induce  to  grow 
into  a  strong  tuft.  The  plants  we  are  looking  at  appeared 
last  autumn,  and  though  they  looked  very  sad  during  cold 
and  wet  spells  of  winter  weather,  they  battled  through, 
keeping  a  few  of  their  many-patterned  leaves  green  in  spite 
of  frosts  and  slugs,  and  starting  off  into  rapid  growth  in 
Spring.  Now  they  bear  a  thick  crop  of  orange  coloured 
flowers  of  a  particularly  beautiful  shade  that  is  greatly 
improved  by  the  deep  chocolate-red  eye.  Above  them 
Linum  arboreum  is  a  solid  sheet  of  the  clearest  Daffodil 
yellow,  very  effective  wedged  between  two  large  blocks  of 
grey  stone.  Helianthemum  umbellatum  is  full  of  its  dainty 
white  flowers,  and  one  of  the  most  refined  and  beautiful 
members  of  this  sun-loving  family,  and  very  different  in 
254 


My  Rock  Garden 


its  very  neat,  narrow  leaves  and  upright  growth  from  the 
sprawling,  coarser-growing  kinds.  Its  near  relation,  H. 
libanoticum,  which  is  practically  a  yellow-flowered  counter- 
part of  it,  and  the  still  more  dwarf  lunulatum,  are  equally 
neat  growers. 

At  the  foot  of  the  steps  that  lead  up  to  the  moraines 
Aquilegia  viridi 'flora  is  in  full  bloom.  It  is  a  very  unusual- 
looking  flower,  for  its  petals  are  dark  purplish-brown,  and 
its  sepals  a  curious  dull  green  that  harmonises  beautifully 
with  the  dark  circular  petticoat.  The  spurs  are  long  and 
without  hooks  at  their  ends,  and  the  anthers  protrude  and 
add  to  the  grace  of  the  flower.  There  is  a  charming 
figure  of  it  in  Jacquin's  I  cones  Plantarum  Rariorum.  It 
is  not  an  easy  plant  to  please,  but  in  this  spot  it  is  as 
happy  as  I  ever  saw  it. 

One  seldom  sees  Lotus  Tetragonolobus  in  England,  but 
it  is  well  worth  a  place  at  the  foot  of  the  rock  garden, 
where  it  makes  a  cheerful  green  carpet  for  many  months, 
and  now  and  then  gives  out  a  scent  so  much  like  cow's 
breath  that  the  first  time  I  got  a  whiff  of  it  I  turned  round 
to  look  for  the  cow,  and  finding  none  traced  the  milky 
odour  to  the  plant.  I  do  not  understand  the  conditions 
under  which  this  scent  is  produced,  for  I  often  try  to 
smell  it  myself  or  present  it  to  the  noses  of  others  and  fail, 
and  then  occasionally  it  is  quite  strong  on  the  air  even 
without  touching  the  plant.  The  large,  solitary,  pea-shaped 
flowers  are  of  a  delightfully  soft  yellow,  and  in  a  garden 
specimen  are  much  more  freely  produced  than  those  one 
sees  scattered  here  and  there  in  the  Alpine  pasture.  The 
seeds  are  four-sided  and  bear  prominent  wings  on  each 
255 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

angle,  and  so  have  provided  it  with  the  majestically  sono- 
rous word  once  its  generic  but  now  reduced  to  its  specific 
name.  When  it  was  followed  by  siliquosus  it  was  mightily 
filling  for  a  label,  but  sounded  as  though  it  might  be  an 
efficacious  spell  against  witches  if  pronounced  impressively. 
Viola  bosniaca  is  a  mass  of  bloom  up  among  the  higher 
rocks,  and  has  sown  itself  so  freely  that  a  dozen  or  so  large 
plants  are  staring  at  us  with  their  friendly  rosy  faces.  I 
wish  I  could  say  the  same  of  V.  calcarata,  which  was 
planted  close  by  it  and  has  grown  into  a  yard-wide  bed  of 
leaves  of  a  Watercress  appearance,  and  is  bearing  three 
blooms  and  no  promise  of  more.  Yet  these  very  plants 
were  solid  bunches  of  flowers  when  I  dug  them  up  on  Mt. 
Cenis  two  years  ago.  Helichrysum  bellidioides  has  lived 
here  through  three  winters,  but  was  so  badly  cut  that  it 
had  all  it  could  do  to  try  and  look  green  again  during 
summer,  and  found  no  time  to  waste  on  flowers  until  I 
planted  a  bit  at  the  foot  of  a  stone  facing  due  south  and 
gave  it  a  lean-to  of  glass.  The  mild  winter  has  favoured 
it,  and  it  is  now  thickly  covered  with  pure  white  Daisies  and 
well  repays  the  little  extra  trouble.  A  fine  specimen  of 
Muehlehbeckia  varians  stands  as  the  boundary  post  between 
this  newly-built  rock  bank  and  the  older  portion,  mainly 
devoted  to  succulent  plants.  I  find  it  hardier  than  M. 
complexa,  and  though  it  looks  a  bit  shabby  by  the  end  of 
the  winter,  after  I  have  cut  its  hair  and  the  warm  rains 
come  and  shampoo  its  head  it  is  soon  covered  with  its 
characteristic  fiddle-shaped  leaves,  and  later  in  the  season 
produces  heart-shaped  ones  as  well,  and  bunches  of  minute 
greenish  flowers,  but  I  have  not  yet  had  berries  on  it.  It 
256  ^ 


Four  Yellow  Violas  :         Redbraes  Yellow  Maggie  Chinas 

Klondyke  General  Baden-Powell 


My  Rock  Garden 


is  trained  up  poles  and  is  now  about  nine  feet  high.  Here  I 
grow  a  good  many  of  the  giant  Eryngiums,  such  as  serra 
with  rosettes  of  green,  two-edged  saws,  agavifolium  with 
sword-fish  snouts  for  leaves,  Sanguisorba  with  glaucous 
grassy  leaves  and  flower  heads,  anyone  might  be  forgiven 
for  believing  to  be  a  true  Sanguisorba  ;  Lasseauxii,  the 
giant  of  the  family,  with  narrow  leaves  six  feet  long, 
looking  like  some  great  Pandanus,  and  a  set  of  queer 
hybrids  that  defy  classification  and  have  taken  up  posi- 
tions where  I  could  permit  them  to  remain  and  deve- 
lop. A  few  good  Yuccas  share  the  bank  with  these, 
and  lead  one's  mind  gently  on  to  the  Prickly  Pears  and 
other  Cacti,  Bromeliads,  Dasylirions,  Agaves,  and  other  suc- 
culents for  which  the  rest  of  this  bank  is  reserved.  We 
must  stop  to  admire  two  Oxalis  species  that  grow  among 
the  Eryngiums.  Oxalis  purpurea  is  full  of  flowers  which  are 
large  and  crimson  by  courtesy,  but  rather  close  to  magenta 
I  fear  in  fact,  a  colour  I  can  forgive  in  an  Oxalis  though 
not  in  a  zonal  Pelargonium.  Just  above  it  0.  brasiliensis 
is  only  commencing  to  flower,  and  is  a  better  shade  of 
crimson.  These  two  have  lived  amicably  in  this  nook  for 
many  years,  and  are  very  brilliant  in  Spring,  and  look  well 
among  the  subtropical  foliage  around  them,  though  neither 
would  be  pleasing  near  scarlet  flowers.  Cereus  paucispinus 
is  full  of  fat  flower-buds  promising  a  gorgeous  patch  of  scar- 
let for  next  month,  and  several  of  the  Echinopsis  section 
of  Cereus  show  grey  tufts  of  wool  where  their  large  white 
or  pink  flowers  are  to  come.  The  young  growths  of  the 
Opuntias  have  not  yet  taken  on  the  round  outline  that  means 
flowers  or  flattened  out  to  show  they  are  only  fresh  branches. 
257  R 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

It  is  too  early  in  the  year  to  fully  enjoy  this  bank  of 
prickly  things,  so  turn  and  look  at  the  opposite  side  of  the 
path,  for  here  one  of  the  corners  of  the  triangular  main  por- 
tion of  this  rock  garden  has  its  commencement.  A  northern 
slope  is  crowned  with  tall  growing  plants  to  give  more  shade 
lower  down.  A  fine  specimen  of  silver-leaved  Rue  is  now 
very  effective,  the  young  leaves  as  white  as  ivory.  A  fine 
purple  effect  is  given  by  Clematis  Pallasii  fol.  purpureis. 
It  has  the  habit  and  flowers,  later  on  of  course,  of  C.  recta, 
but  is  as  rich  in  colour  as  a  Copper  Beech  while  its  leaves 
are  young.  The  large  spherical  heads  of  Allium  Rosen- 
bachianum  rise  up  beside  it,  and  their  mauve  colouring  is 
charming  against  its  purple  leaves.  The  double  Welsh 
Poppy  Meconopsis  cambrica  fl.  pi.  is  rather  inclined  to  play 
the  weed  on  the  lower  slope,  and  tries  to  smother  Saxifraga 
sarmentosa,  which  is  as  happy  here  round  the  feet  of  the 
stones  as  it  is  in  cottage  windows,  where  it  is  known  as 
"  Mother  of  Thousands."  Ranunculus  nyssanus  runs  about 
freely,  and  its  large  varnished  Buttercup  flowers  are  good 
with  the  deeper  orange  of  the  Poppy.  Orchis  sambucina 
from  Mt.  Cenis  is  giving  me  half  a  dozen  lovely  sulphur 
spikes  charming  in  contrast  with  a  colony  of  a  good  blue- 
lilac  form  of  Phlox  divaricata,  var.  canadensis.  Of  course 
my  usual  space-grudging  views  have  led  me  to  pack  a  hun- 
dred and  one  other  plants  among  these,  so  that  the  ground 
is  full  of  bulbs,  Dianthus  species,  Primula  marginata,  P. 
Auricula  and  several  others,  Saxifrages,  Potentillas,  and  too 
long  a  list  to  remember,  let  alone  to  write  out,  but  at  this 
moment  the  effect  is  produced  by  those  I  have  named  as 
being  in  flower.  Such  totally  different  styles  of  shrubs  as 
258 


My  Rock  Garden 


two  Caraganas,  a  fine  specimen  of  the  mop-headed  Bladder 
Senna,  Colutea  arborescens,  var.  bullata,  Viburnum  bullatum, 
Hedera  conglomerate  and  a  spreading  tree  of  the  pink  double 
Cherry  J.  H.  Veitch,  form  the  forest  of  the  slopes  and 
ridge,  and  in  their  shade  Ramondias  have  made  some  fine 
rosettes.  Anemone  nemorosa  forms  are  happy  in  a  level 
bay,  and  other  woodland  things  like  Trillium  grandiflomm 
and  Snowdrops  as  well  as  a  clump  of  Lilium  Marhan  find  a 
home. 

We  are  now  opposite  an  old  ivy-covered  summer-house, 
that  was  here  long  before  the  rock  garden  was  begun,  and 
tucked  away  under  a  fine  old  Thorn  it  is  not  too  incon- 
gruous to  be  left  and  utilised  as  a  tool-shed  and  a  refuge  in 
sudden  storms.  Opposite  its  door  the  main  path  turns  down 
the  slope  to  the  south,  runs  through  the  centre  of  the 
triangle  of  rock  garden  and  leads  at  the  lower  end  to  a 
wooden  bridge  over  a  pool,  and  then  through  a  meadow  and 
into  the  park,  and  as  it  forms  the  short  cut  between  us  and 
my  brother's  house  on  the  other  side  of  the  park  it  is  a 
rather  wider  path  than  is  necessary  in  a  rock  garden. 
Branch  paths  run  right  and  left  from  it,  and  lead  down  into 
two  excavated  hollows  with  high  mounds  to  flank  each  of 
them  on  all  their  sides,  which  mounds  form  the  four  some- 
what parallel  ranges  of  mountains  that  are  the  main  portion 
of  the  rock  garden.  We  will  take  the  left-hand  path,  and  so 
find  a  bank  facing  due  south  and  a  level  bay  at  its  feet  full 
of  treasures,  but  we  must  only  stop  to  notice  a  few  of  those 
which  are  in  flower  now  in  May.  Viola  gracilis  was  first 
revealed  to  me  here.  I  got  it  from  Sprenger  of  Naples  several 
years  before  it  was  generally  discovered  by  English  nursery- 
259 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

men,  and  it  soon  wedded  with  V.  Munbyana  and  produced 
several  seedlings  of  hybrid  origin.  One  of  these  caught 
the  critical  eye  of  Mr.  George  Paul,  and  I  gave  it  into  his 
hands,  and  he  has  sent  it  forth  as  strong  young  plants,  and 
named  it  Mrs.  Bowles  in  memory  of  my  mother.  I  still 
keep  a  little  colony  of  it  here,  as  it  flowers  for  just  as  won- 
derfully long  a  period  as  Munbyana,  and  is  a  good  purple 
blue.  The  variety  known  as  V.  gracilis  Purple  Robe  is  much 
like  it,  but  neither  so  blue  a  shade  nor  quite  so  good  a  shape, 
I  think. 

Erodiums  are  much  to  the  fore  among  the  rocks  here. 
E.  amanum  has  begun  its  long  flowering  season,  and  looks 
very  pretty  now  with  its  silvery  grey  leaves  and  white 
blossoms.  It  is  a  dioecious  species,  and  the  pistil-bearing 
form  is  pure  white,  while  the  pollen-bearing  male  has  pink 
anthers  and  a  few  rosy  lines  in  the  throat  and  so  is  the 
prettier  flower,  but  one  needs  both  to  get  seed  and  the 
self-sown  seedlings  that  I  like  to  see  it  produce.  Next  to 
it  is  a  planting  of  young  plants  of  E.  chrysanthum,  one  of 
the  rarest  and  loveliest  of  this  family.  It  closely  resembles 
the  last  species,  but  its  leaves  are  more  silky  and  more 
finely  cut,  and  its  flowers  are  a  most  beautiful  sulphur  that 
looks  rather  unusual  on  such  silver  foliage.  In  chrysan- 
thum the  sexes  are  as  rigidly  divided  as  in  some  Lutheran 
churches,  and  here  again  the  male  or  pollen  plant  has  pink 
anthers  which  greatly  add  to  his  beauty.  I  believe  that  the 
hybrid  between  these  two,  E.  lindavicum  Sundermann,  is 
not  uncommon  in  gardens  where  chrysanthum  and  amanum 
are  grown  near  one  another,  but  it  is  not  to  be  desired,  being 
intermediate  in  colour  of  flower,  a  dull  yellowish-white,  and 
260 


One  of  the  slopes  in  the  Rock  Garden.     (See  p.  270.) 


My  Rock  Garden 


representing  the  spoiling  of  two  good  plants.  Above  these 
Storks'  Bills  and  in  a  crevice  is  one  of  the  best  of  all 
Houseleeks,  Sempervivum  rubicundum,  which  reverses  the 
general  order  of  family  colouring  and  has  rich  red  leaves 
with  green  tips.  It  is  just  now  at  its  best  for  Spring  colouring 
and  wonderfully  bright,  but  is  one  of  the  plants  that  suffers 
from  too  many  friends,  for  all  who  come  fall  in  love  with  it 
and  carry  off  a  rosette,  so  that  it  spreads  slowly  in  the  crevice 
but  rapidly  into  distant  gardens.  On  the  level  below  are 
some  huge  rosettes  of  S.  Comollei,  another  really  good  one. 
It  makes  rosettes  as  large  as  those  of  any  Houseleek  when 
generously  treated,  five  inches  or  more  across  and  of  won- 
derfully beautiful  colouring,  glaucous  green  shot  with  blue 
and  purple,  more  like  an  Echeveria  than  a  mere  Houseleek. 
Canon  Ellacombe  noticed  this  fine  thing  in  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes  in  Paris,  received  a  rosette  from  there,  and  after 
a  few  seasons  was  able  to  distribute  it,  and  so  it  came 
back  with  me  after  one  of  my  visits  to  Bitton. 

A  curious  plant  grows  at  the  corner  here,  Allium  Dios- 
coridis,  often  called  Nectaroscordum  siculum,  a  tall,  strange- 
looking  thing  to  be  one  of  the  Garlicks.  It  possesses  the 
most  pungent  and  evil  smell  of  any  plant  I  know,  and 
I  enjoy  breaking  a  leaf  in  half  and  getting  my  friends 
to  help  in  deciding  whether  it  most  resembles  an  escape 
of  gas  or  a  new  mackintosh.  It  is  already  throwing  up 
its  curious  heads  of  flowers  ;  at  present  they  are  enclosed  in 
a  leafy  bag  looking  like  the  bud  of  some  very  tall  Narcissus. 
Later  on  they  emerge,  and  the  buds  hang  down  and  open 
a  few  at  a  time,  but  after  flowering  stand  upright.  The 
flowers  are  a  shrimp  pink  marked  with  green  and  dull  red, 
261 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

and  are  very  interesting  because  it  regularly  happens  that 
the  first  to  open  has  eight  perianth  segments  and  anthers 
to  match,  the  next  few  have  the  normal  six  of  a  liliaceous 
plant,  but  towards  the  end  of  the  flowering  it  can  only 
afford  the  last  few  flowers  four  each.  The  true  Linaria 
hepaticaefolia  is  pretty  running  all  about  the  level  bed ;  its 
tiny  leaves  are  those  of  Cyclamen  ibericum  in  miniature,  and 
are  similarly  banded  with  white  zones ;  the  little  white 
flowers  are  scattered  among  them  very  close  to  the  ground. 
Climbing  about  on  the  shady  side  of  a  rocky  slope  close 
by  is  L.  aequitriloba,  which  in  many  lists  bears  the  name  of 
the  other.  It  has  purple  flowers,  and  leaves,  as  the  name 
implies,  of  three  distinct  equal  divisions  like  those  of  the 
Ivy-leaved  Toad-flax  L.  Cymbalaria,  which  it  closely  re- 
sembles but  on  a  much  smaller  scale.  Now  on  our  right 
we  get  a  brilliant  mass  of  mixed  Aubrietias,  the  result  of 
self-sown  seedlings.  Originally  I  planted  Dr.  Mules  and 
Bridesmaid  here,  and  they  both  exist,  but  as  grandparents 
now  among  their  descendants  ;  any  objectionably  violent  in 
colour  were  pulled  up,  and  the  rest  left  to  fight  it  out  or 
agree  amicably  as  they  chose.  Behind  them  Erysimum 
Allionii  sows  itself  freely  among  various  dwarf  Cytisus 
bushes  on  the  ridge,  and  its  vivid  orange  is  very  good  here 
among  several  dark-leaved  plants  and  against  a  flowering 
mass  of  the  pale  lilac  Veronica  circaeoides.  Near  these 
are  the  wonderful  leaves  of  Allium  karataviense,  var.  Ellisii; 
their  wonder  consists  in  the  extraordinary  metallic  colour- 
ing they  show  when  young,  purple-violet  on  the  under 
side  and  steel-blue  above  with  a  deep  red  edge.  They  are 
especially  lovely  when  a  few  raindrops  are  caught  in  their 
262 


My  Rock  Garden 


pleated  folds,  but  the  head  of  flowers  is  not  worthy  of  this 
early  promise,  and  a  very  dingy  affair,  much  too  large  for 
its  short  stem.  The  other  side  of  the  walk  calls  for  a  glance  ; 
a  group  of  the  two  heaths,  Erica  carnea  and  hybrida,  crowns 
the  mound,  and  white  Fritillarias  have  been  making  a  pretty 
contrast  with  its  red  flowers  :  both  are  passing  over  by  now, 
but  some  very  good  Camassia  seedlings  are  taking  their 
place.  The  first  I  planted  here  were  some  named  seedlings 
of  C.  Leichtlinii,  a  pure  white,  and  a  very  deep  purple  called 
Purple  Robe  ;  now  seedlings  have  appeared  in  all  directions, 
and  some  are  of  very  good  deep  blue  and  purple  shades. 

There  are  several  large  clumps  of  C.  Leichtlinii  in  the 
rock  garden,  both  the  typical  cream-coloured  one  and  the 
lilac-blue  variety,  and  if  one  sees  them  on  an  afternoon 
when  they  have  freshly  opened  a  series  of  flowers  they  are 
a  fine  sight,  but  sometimes  I  wish  to  impress  a  visitor  with 
their  beauty  and  find  never  a  bloom  open  ;  yesterday's  have 
all  faded  and  they  make  the  plant  look  untidy,  and  the 
next  four  or  five  buds  on  each  stem  will  not  open  until  the 
late  afternoon.  A  good-sized  bush  of  Berberis  Fremontii 
astonishes  many  people  who  think  it  needs  a  wall  to  do 
well.  It  grows  in  a  very  exposed  position  here,  and  is  ex- 
quisite when  the  crimson  of  the  young  growth  contrasts 
with  the  steely  blue  of  its  prickly  little  leaves.  Corylopsis 
pauciflora  grows  in  a  sheltered  nook  with  Olearia  num- 
mulanaefolia,  a  Bush  Ivy  and  a  prostrate  Juniper  to  keep  it 
company.  The  Corylopsis  gives  bunches  of  flowers  like 
Cowslips  on  fine  twigs  in  early  Spring,  and  then  for  the 
next  four  months  bears  imitation  Hornbeam  leaves  of 
delightful  shades  of  pink  and  red  and  tawny  brown,  more 
263 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

like  Autumn  than  Spring  tints,  but  in  late  Summer  they 
turn  green  and  cease  to  be  remarkable.  Lower  down  is  a 
remarkably  fine  Dead  Nettle  not  often  seen,  Lamium  Orvala, 
with  handsome,  deep-green  leaves  and  flesh-pink  flowers. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  path  is  a  plant  of  Orvala  lamioides, 
by  some  authorities  considered  the  same  as  the  Lamium, 
but  it  has  a  very  different  habit  and  appearance,  and  leaves 
that  are  tinged  with  red  and  much  like  those  of  a  Coleus 
and  that  colour  finely  in  Autumn.  Hereabouts  grow 
many  Violas ;  there  are  three  forms  of  V.  cucullata,  a  deep 
blue,  a  white,  and  a  pied,  besides  F.  sorora,  another  American 
species  with  light-blue  flowers  of  great  size,  F.  pubescens,  the 
largest  flowered  of  the  yellow  Violets,  and  sagittata,  a  pretty 
blue  one.  These  are  all  tuberous  rooted  and  die  down  each 
Winter,  after  the  manner  of  F.  biflora,  the  wee  yellow  Violet 
of  the  Alps,  and  its  American  representative,  F.  scabriuscala, 
which  scarcely  differs  from  it  except  in  having  markedly 
pointed  instead  of  round  leaves.  I  have  one  little  tuft  of 
F.  biflora  with  pale  sulphur  flowers  that  I  brought  from 
the  St.  Gothard  district,  the  only  variant  I  have  ever  found 
among  the  thousands  of  normal  ones  I  have  met  with. 
Much  of  the  right-hand  slope  is  carpeted  with  two  forms 
of  F.  canina,  both  given  me  by  Mr.  Wolley-Dod,  one  a 
pure  white  and  of  very  neat  habit,  which  though  it  seeds 
all  over  the  place  comes  quite  true  from  seed,  the  other 
a  pretty  blue  and  white  pied  form,  but  which  spreads  much 
less  than  the  white.  Another  and  larger  white  Violet  I 
believe  to  be  of  American  origin,  and  either  white 
Riviniana  or  very  near  it.  Dr.  Lowe  gave  it  to  me  many 
years  ago,  and  bade  me  remember  that  it  was  not  the  white 
264 


Sundial  in  the  Pergola  Garden.     (See  p.  288.) 


My  Rock  Garden 


Dog  Violet,  whatever  people  might  say  to  the  contrary.  I 
have  also  a  starch-blue  one  from  Wisley  that  is  either  a  form 
of  it  or  some  closely  allied  one.  These  banks  are  packed 
with  plants,  but  it  would  take  a  whole  volume  to  mention 
half  of  them,  so  we  must  move  on  and  by  turning  to  the 
right  can  avoid  walking  into  the  pool,  and  rejoin  the  main 
path. 

We  pass  a  collection  of  naturally  dwarf  trees  and  shrubs, 
such  as  the  pygmy  forms  of  the  Scots  Pine  and  Spruce, 
several  Euonymous  japonicus,  and  a  Box  or  two  of  dwarf 
habits.  Ligustrum  japonicum,  var.  coriaceum,  and  its  sub- 
variety  involutum  have  grown  into  fine  specimens,  and 
look  wonderfully  like  dwarf  Camellias.  But  the  gems  of 
this  corner  are  a  dwarf  Cedar  of  Lebanon,  a  variety 
known  as  Comte  de  Dijon,  and  two  of  the  small  form  of 
Irish  Juniper  that  I  have  seen  in  a  catalogue  as  /.  communis 
hibernica  compressa  nana.  The  dwarf  Willows,  Salix  re- 
ticulata,  S.  herbacea,  and  the  larger  S.  lanata  are  also  here, 
and  each  has  a  decided  character  of  its  own.  The  two  first 
are  the  lowliest  of  British  shrubs,  for  although  reticulata's 
leaves  are  large  and  round,  and  with  their  footstalks  stand 
up  two  inches  or  more  from  the  ground  and  the  curious 
brownish  catkins,  which  closely  resemble  the  Plantain- 
heads  that  children  play  the  game  of  Soldiers  with,  over- 
top the  leaves,  yet  the  woody  trunk  of  this  minute  tree 
lies  flat  upon  the  ground,  however  aged  and  thick  it  may 
be.  Herbacea  has  very  small  leaves  and  thin  twigs  that 
never  rise  up  for  more  than  an  inch  or  two,  while  the 
stem  prefers  to  bury  itself  in  the  ground  after  the  manner 
of  a  root.  Lanata  should  make  a  handsome  bush  of 
265 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

several  feet  in  height,  but  seldom  finds  life  in  a  garden 
sufficiently  worth  living  to  stay  there  long  enough  to 
exceed  one  foot.  Its  large,  round,  woolly  leaves  are 
very  striking,  as  they  are  of  an  unusual  shade  of  grey- 
green,  but  the  male  catkins  are  its  chief  glory,  from  the 
moment  they  burst  their  bud-scales  and  appear  as  white 
as  snow  till  they  have  successively  imitated  blue  Persian 
kittens  and  yellow  hairy  caterpillars  and,  their  pollen  shed, 
they  fall  to  the  ground.  Several  almost  microscopic 
plants,  such  as  Arenaria  balearica,  Epilobium  nummula- 
rifolium,  Mentha  Requienii  smelling  so  strongly  of  Pepper- 
mint, Erodium  Reichardii,  and  Veronica  repens  make  carpets 
under  the  small  trees.  At  the  corner  of  this  bank  Saxi- 
frages behave  better  than  in  most  parts  of  this  dry  garden, 
and  S.  Burseriana,  Salomonii,  Elizabethae,  oppositifolia, 
and  sancta  are  here,  also  taygetea  looking  like  Soldanella 
in  leaf,  and  tenella,  which  I  was  told  by  its  donor  I  should 
not  be  able  to  keep  long,  but  has  been  happy  in  this, 
the  original  site  I  allotted  it,  for  at  least  twelve  years, 
an  instance  of  the  inevitable  happening  of  the  unexpected. 
I  wish  S.  oppositifolia  would  do  a  little  better  here;  it 
occasionally  flowers  well  and  encourages  me  to  plant 
more,  and  then  for  a  season  or  two  may  look  brown  and 
bedraggled,  in  fact  "a  positive  failure"  as  a  lady  once 
called  it.  I  sat  down  on  a  carpet  of  it  to  eat  my  sandwich 
luncheon  up  in  the  Cottian  Alps,  last  June,  and  looked  at 
the  rosy  cushions  and  longed  to  see  a  slope  of  the  rock 
garden  similarly  furnished,  but  though  S.  retusa  has  settled 
down  most  amicably  in  the  piped  sand  bed,  and  flowered 
well  this  Spring,  oppositifolia  by  its  side  is  slowly  dying. 
266 


My  Rock  Garden 


Look  at  Allium  paradoxum  on  your  left :  the  little 
transparent  yellowish  bulbils  struck  here  and  there  among 
the  flowers  look  like  Mistletoe  berries.  Spirea  Thunbergii 
at  the  opposite  corner  has  been  flowering  ever  since 
Christmas,  and  is  still  full  of  blossom.  It  has  grown  into 
a  fine  specimen,  I  believe  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  I 
give  it  a  good  clearing  out  of  old  wood  each  season  just 
after  flowering.  Did  you  catch  a  whiff  of  an  unpleasant 
smell  like  fish  frying  ?  I  often  wondered  how  it  was 
possible  to  smell  kitchen  operations  down  here  so  far 
from  any  house  until  I  discovered  it  was  the  scent  of 
Cotoneaster  multiflora,  the  umbrella-shaped  specimen 
growing  on  the  top  of  the  high  mound.  It  is  something 
like  the  scent  of  Hawthorn,  but  much  more  unpleasant. 
The  tree  is  graceful,  though,  and  of  course  the  scent  passes 
away  with  the  flowers,  and  they  atone  for  their  wickedness 
by  turning  to  good  red  berries  in  autumn.  Among  these 
large  cordate  leaves  you  can  find  the  weird  blossoms  of 
Asarum  Bealei,  livid  red  with  three  tails,  each  one  of 
which  is  nearly  three  inches  long,  and  close  beside  it 
grows  A.  grandiflorum  with  very  similar  flowers,  both  of 
them  so  uncanny  and  evil-looking  that  they  would  make 
a  suitable  button-hole  for  the  Devil.  Claytonia  siberica, 
both  pink  and  white,  seeds  about  freely  in  this  semi-shady 
corner,  and  is  comely  and  welcome  now,  but  later  on  it 
becomes  aggressive,  sprawls  out  in  a  chickweedy  way  that 
proclaims  its  rather  plebeian  lineage,  and  reminds  us  of  its 
poor  relation  C.  perfoliata,  whose  only  beauty  is  the  green 
carpet  it  provides  in  hopelessly  shady  places  during  the 
winter  months. 

267 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Hyacinthus  amethystinus,  both  blue  and  white,  lives  and 
seeds  about  on  the  sunny  side  of  the  main  path,  and 
reminds  me  of  a  glorious  day  on  Aero-Corinth  when  I  saw 
it  peeping  out  among  fallen  blocks  of  marble. 

Now  the  path  passes  between  two  sheets  of  water,  or 
so  they  might  appear  if  carefully  brought  into  the  fore- 
ground of  a  photograph.  One  is  in  an  old  circular  lead  tank 
sunk  in  the  ground  and  about  six  feet  in  diameter,  another 
heritage  from  the  dismantled  house.  It  grows  the  major 
form  of  Ranunculus  Lingua  very  well,  three  of  Marliac's 
Water-lilies,  and  Riccia  fluitans,  a  curious  water  Liverwort 
that  floats  about  in  tufts  looking  like  green  isinglass.  It 
also  supports  a  family  of  rudd  that  a  fish-loving  friend 
caught  for  me  in  Norfolk,  and  the  largest  of  our  water 
snails,  Limnaea  stagnalis,  which  devours  confervae  and 
respects  phanerogamic  plants,  and  so  can  be  admitted 
where  our  more  plentiful  L,  auriculata  must  be  excluded. 
A  huge  French  Edible  Frog,  one  of  several  brought  home 
from  foreign  rambles,  has  settled  down  here,  and  generally 
sits  on  the  edge  of  the  tank  sunning  himself,  and  can  be 
watched  if  cautiously  approached,  and  his  metallic  eyes 
and  green  striped  back  are  good  to  see,  but  at  any  sudden 
movement  he  takes  a  header  into  the  pool  in  a  moment. 
We  hoped  great  things  of  the  other  pool,  and  cemented 
rocks  together  to  form  its  sides,  but  it  suffers  from  unac- 
countable low  tides  occasionally,  and  is  now  full  of  Cyperus 
longus  and  other  grassy  things.  It  is  fed  by  a  drip  that 
is  the  overflow  from  three  other  small  pools  further  up 
in  the  rock  garden,  and  where  this  splashes  down  off  an 
overhanging  stone  I  have  planted  a  few  moisture-loving 
treasures.  A  maidenhair  fern,  Adiantum  Capillus-Veneris, 
268 


My  Rock  Garden 


from  the  Cornish  cliffs  is  one,  and  has  thriven  amazingly 
for  some  fifteen  years,  though  often  encrusted  with  icicles 
in  winter.  The  mountains  rise  high  at  the  back  of  this 
pool  of  disappointment,  for  here  again  I  planned  won- 
derful things,  and  spent  money  and  muscle  on  some  very 
large  blocks  and  built  up  a  right  noble  cliff.  In  spite  of 
its  cost  it  is  one  of  the  least  interesting  bits  of  the  garden 
— too  much  stone  and  too  little  room  for  plants,  in  fact. 
I  was  foolish  enough  to  plant  Lactuca  (Mulgedium)  alpina 
on  it,  and  have  spent  years  trying  to  get  rid  of  it,  and  but 
for  the  concrete  I  believe  it  would  have  filled  the  whole 
garden  and  pushed  up  through  the  floors  of  the  house  and 
into  the  road  to  stop  the  traffic,  for  Atalanta  and  Charley's 
Aunt  are  tortoises  compared  with  such  a  runner. 

Euphorbia  Wulfenii  makes  a  handsome  bush  and  a  fine 
dark  mass  when  out  of  flower,  but  now  with  the  great 
yellow  green  heads  rising  up  out  of  the  almost  indigo  blue 
foliage  it  is  a  very  fine  object.  The  stems  turn  over  at  the 
tips  in  autumn  if  they  mean  to  flower  next  year,  and  then 
the  heart  leaves  of  these  shoots  take  on  red  stripes,  and  the 
display  gradually  unfolds  all  through  the  winter  until  it 
ends  in  the  immense  heads  of  bloom.  This  is  a  Euphorbia 
corner,  and  E.  pilosa  major,  which  I  cannot  distinguish 
from  E.  polychroma  growing  next  it,  almost  vies  with  the 
Daffodils  in  yellowness,  but  certainly  beats  them  in  having 
a  second  season,  for  in  some  autumns  it  turns  a  dazzling 
scarlet.  E.  corollata  is  only  springing  up  at  this  season, 
and  will  not  get  its  curious,  corolla-like,  white  bracts  before 
June.  E.  Cyparissias  and  even  Lathyris  the  Caper-spurge 
are  here,  and  several  poorer  relations  less  worthy  of  notice, 
269 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

but  E.  Characias  has  always  grown  on  the  older  range,  and 
so  is  not  represented  again  here.  I  like  its  curious  dull 
green  heads  of  flowers  with  their  conspicuous  black  spots, 
and  like  to  call  it  by  a  name  I  learnt  from  Mr.  Burbidge.  He 
overheard  a  garden-boy  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  showing 
some  people  round  and  answering  their  questions,  and 
when  asked  the  name  of  this  Spurge  he  said,  "  Sure  an'  I 
do  not  rightly  know  what  it  is  designated,  but  we  boys  call 
it  the  Frog  Spawn  bush."  E.  melifera  crowns  the  next 
mound,  but  is  often  severely  punished  in  winter  here,  so 
has  never  reached  to  eight  feet  in  height  as  I  have  seen  it 
at  Fota,  where  I  gathered  the  seed  that  produced  my 
plant. 

Now  we  turn  up  a  little  path  of  steps  to  the  left  and 
cross  a  flat  stone  that  serves  as  a  bridge  over  the  overflow 
channel  from  the  pools.  The  photograph  facing  page  164 
will  show  you  better  than  my  pen  can  describe  the  view 
from  the  bridge  in  the  last  week  of  May  when  Columbines 
and  Thalictrums  and  pink  Geranium  sylvaticum  run  riot 
on  the  left-hand  bank.  Only  an  edge  is  shown,  though, 
of  the  Trollius  and  Sedges  that  fringe  the  pools  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  path.  The  big  Golden-fruited  Ivy 
stands  out  well  at  the  end,  and  the  outermost  boughs  of 
the  large  Magnolia  stellata  can  be  seen  at  the  extreme  right, 
but  the  flowers  of  the  orange-coloured  Welsh  Poppies  that 
cover  all  the  bank  between  them  are  almost  invisible  even 
with  a  lens,  though  their  seed  heads  are  discernible  just 
under  the  Ivy,  and  Rosa  altaica  and  R.  hispida  show  up  well 
behind.  If  we  go  up  the  path  shown  we  can  turn  to  the 
right  at  the  head  of  the  largest  pool,  and  after  passing  the 
270 


My  Rock  Garden 


Magnolia,  we  must  stop  and  wonder  at  the  rose-like 
beauty  of  a  large  bush  of  Rubus  deliciosus,  that  arches 
out  every  which  way  as  Huck  Finn  would  say,  and  bears 
its  snow-white  flowers  all  down  the  arching  branches.  It 
is  prettier  thus  than  as  one  generally  sees  it  crucified  flat 
on  a  wall,  and  as  it  is  quite  happy  in  a  very  draughty  spot 
here  must  be  hardier  than  people  think.  One  thing  is 
essential  to  success,  and  that  is  to  cut  out  all  old  wood 
after  flowering,  in  order  to  give  plenty  of  room  for  the 
yellow-skinned  new  shoots  to  spring  out  into  air  and 
light.  Mandrakes  and  Crocuses  share  the  next  bank  with 
Oenothera  speciosa,  now  just  appearing  with  its  red  shoots, 
and  a  queer  little  black  Viola  tricolor  that  starting  from 
this  point  has  gone  about  the  world  a  good  deal  lately 
under  the  name  of  Bowies'  Black.  It  is  an  old  garden 
form  of  V.  tricolor,  authorities  say,  and  I  got  it  from  Dr. 
Lowe,  who  told  me  it  always  bred  true,  and  so  it  does  if 
kept  to  itself,  and  I  rather  think  its  own  seedlings  decline 
to  be  influenced  by  foreign  pollen,  though  I  have  made 
no  decisive  tests,  but  I  know  that  it  readily  influences 
other  Violas,  and  its  dusky  charms  appear  in  Mulattoes, 
Quadroons,  and  Octaroons  all  over  the  place.  I  am  not 
responsible  for  its  new  name,  though  I  know  of  no  old 
one.  (I  see.  that  Kew  calls  it  V.  tricolor  nigra  now,  but 
it  does  not  appear  in  the  1902  Hand-List.)  Canon 
Ellacombe  saw  it  here,  and  having  lost  it  at  Bitton,  carried 
it  back  again,  where  it  was  seen,  admired  and  coveted  by 
the  stream  of  visitors  that  ever  flows  to  view  the  perennial 
display  of  good  plants  in  that  garden.  They  were  told 
that  Bowles  was  throwing  it  away,  and  many  a  begging 
27! 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

letter  came  here  asking  for  my  black  Pansy,  and  most  of 
those  to  whom  I  sent  it  labelled  it  Bowies'  Black,  and 
soon  after  sent  it  on  to  other  gardens  under  that  hideous 
name.  Not  so  bad,  though,  as  one  I  saw  at  the  last 
Chelsea  Show,  for  there  it  was  labelled  Viola  Black 
Bowles  !  I  am  not  so  black  as  I  was  painted  on  that 
label,  so  I  altered  it.  It  is  a  very  charming  little  weed, 
sowing  itself  freely,  and  when  in  full  bloom  it  has  a 
wonderfully  friendly  and  cheerful  look  in  the  yellow 
Cyclopian  eye  in  the  middle  of  its  almost  black  face. 
Where  we  rejoin  the  main  path  just  opposite  the  Er odium 
chrysanthum  and  amanum  corner  we  stopped  at  on  our 
downward  way,  the  path  is  overspread  by  Acaena  Bucha- 
nanii,  a  light,  glaucous-green  species  that  behaved  so  badly 
and  greedily  in  the  border  that  I  turned  it  out,  as  I  have 
also  done  with  inermis  and  argentea,  to  spread  as  much  as 
they  like  on  the  path,  where  they  are  quite  a  success,  and 
do  not  mind  being  walked  on.  The  only  trouble  is  that 
all  stray  seeds  anchor  in  them  and  germinate  and  pro- 
vide perpetual  labour  for  the  garden-boy.  A  forest  that 
looks  as  if  it  were  primaeval  spreads  over  the  left-hand 
corner,  and  it  is  entirely  composed  of  Prunus  Amygdalus 
nanus,  and  when  one  rosy  glow  of  blossom  and  bud  is 
really  lovely. 

Mr.  Farrer  always  lingers  lovingly  over  this  corner,  and 
declares  it  to  be  his  idea  of  good  gardening,  and  I  suppose 
it  really  is  good,  and  I  may  say  so,  for  it  is  not  mine  but 
Nature's  work,  the  Almond  having  walked  all  over  the 
ground  in  its  own  wild  way,  and  the  Crocuses  and  Muscaris, 
Camassias  and  Narcissi,  Snowdrops  and  Campanulas  that 
272 


Old  Cross  from  Enfield  Market-place.     (See  p.  291.) 


My  Rock  Garden 


live  among  its  stems  have  not  been  disturbed  for  certainly 
sixteen  years,  and  have  done  much  seeding  and  rearrange- 
ment on  their  own  account  in  that  period.  So  all  the 
credit  I  can  claim  is  for  having  wit  enough  to  leave  it 
alone.  To  the  left  of  the  old  summer-house  lies  the  oldest 
bank  of  the  rock  garden.  It  is  hard  to  deal  with  now,  for 
though  many  portions  are  rather  exhausted  and  need  re- 
modelling, it  contains  many  good  old  specimen  plants  on 
it  that  it  would  be  sacrilege  to  interfere  with  ;  a  large 
Cytisus  cinereus  is  one,  and  now  is  one  mass  of  the  most 
dazzlingly  clear  yellow  that  the  garden  yields  in  the  whole 
season.  A  large  bush  of  Rosa  indica,  the  real  crimson 
form,  known  as  Miss  Lowe's  from  her  beautiful  drawing 
of  it,  given  me  by  Dr.  Lowe,  is  opening  its  first  flowers,  and 
will,  all  being  well,  continue  to  do  so  until  close  on  Christ- 
mas. It  is  the  parent  of  the  Monthly  Roses  ;  its  flowers 
are  single  and  purest  crimson.  Olearia  virgata,  var.  lineata, 
above  it  is  a  wonderfully  light  bush  with  its  wand- 
like  growth  and  tiny,  linear  leaves,  very  unlike  any  other 
Olearia  in  habit.  It  bears  dull  little  flowers  like  those  of 
Groundsel,  only  white  instead  of  yellow,  but  its  graceful 
habit  makes  it  good  to  look  at  all  the  year  round.  Large 
bushes  of  Rosa  rubrifolia  and  sericea  crown  the  top,  and 
going  up  the  main  steps  we  come  to  a  flat  hollow  filled 
with  peat  that  I  sometimes  flatter  by  calling  a  bog. 
Sanguinaria  and  Podophyllum,  Caltha  radicans,  Andromeda 
polifolia,  Trilliums  and  other  peat-loving  things  live  here, 
and  the  fern  Hypolepis  millefolium  runs  about  all  through 
it.  I  started  Saxifraga  peltata  in  one  corner,  and  it  wanted 
to  walk  over  everybody  with  its  enormous  caterpillars  of 
273  S 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

rhizomes,  but  this  could  not  be  allowed,  and  so  it  got  cut 
back,  and  then  took  to  climbing  up  the  dry  wall  that  holds 
up  the  river  bank  at  the  back.  It  has  now  reached  the 
top,  and  looks  so  happy  clinging  to  the  stones  that  I  have 
cleared  it  out  altogether  from  the  peat  bed.  Just  now, 
before  its  huge,  Lotus-shaped  leaves  have  grown  up,  the  fat 
marbled  rhizomes  and  tall  naked  scapes  bearing  the  flat 
heads  of  pretty  pink  flowers  look  very  strange  clinging  to 
and  springing  from  the  wall. 

They  may  be  seen  in  the  right-hand  corner  of  the 
illustration  of  the  fine  old  Tamarix  tetrandra  that  now, 
in  late  May,  is  the  glory  of  the  whole  garden.  It  is 
one  soft  cloud  of  Strawberry-ice  pink,  as  fluffy  and 
light  as  Marabou  feathers,  not  a  green  leaf  as  yet  visible  ; 
and  against  the  background  of  oaks  it  stands  out  like 
a  bush  in  a  pantomime  scene  of  the  Fairy  Princess' 
Garden,  and  one  almost  expects  to  see  it  suddenly  lit 
up  with  electric  lights,  and  then  divided  asunder  to 
reveal  the  Princess  reclining  on  a  gilded  couch,  &c.,  &c. 
It  does  look  most  astonishingly  unreal' out  here  in  the 
open  air,  and  what  surprises  me  is  that  it  is  so  seldom 
seen  in  gardens.  It  is  perfectly  hardy,  easy  to  strike 
from  cuttings,  grows  rapidly,  is  graceful  in  outline,  truly 
marvellous  when  in  flower  in  May,  and  beautifully  feathery 
when  in  leaf  from  June  to  November.  Yet  you  rarely 
see  it,  while  Dorothy  Perkins  scratches  your  nose  and 
claws  your  hat  off  in  every  garden  you  go  into.  Coto- 
neaster  horizontalis  tries  its  best  to  block  the  path  up  here, 
and  would  manage  to  do  so  were  it  not  for  me  and  my 
secateurs.  Hedera  conglomerata  has  monopolised  the  top 
274 


My  Rock  Garden 


corner  by  the  river,  but  is  very  beautiful,  and  I  have 
sown  Orobanche  hederae  among  it,  and  every  season  in- 
creasing numbers  of  its  quaint  brown  flower-spikes  push 
through  the  tangle  of  Ivy  stems.  Here  steps  lead  us 
down  again,  and  under  the  shade  of  the  Oaks  which 
hang  out  from  the  meadow  not  much  will  grow,  but 
the  Alexandrian  Laurel,  Danae  Laurus  (Ruscus  racemosus 
as  we  used  to  call  it)  and  Epimediums  manage  to  be 
cheerful  in  spite  of  the  canopy  of  oak  boughs.  The 
former  has  never  fruited  here  yet,  though  it  has  grown 
well,  and  plenty  of  victors  might  be  crowned  with  its 
wreaths  of  neat,  glistening  laurels.  "  Happy  Medium ! 
what  a  funny  name  ! "  said  an  American  lady,  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  not  blame  me  from  refraining  from  cor- 
recting her,  and  so  allowing  her  to  collect  the  imagined 
name  as  her  latest-found  curio.  They  are  happy,  too,  on 
this  slope,  and  very  beautiful  when  in  flower  and  young 
leaf,  and  as  I  have  collected  them  rather  assiduously  and 
seldom  bought  the  same  plant  twice  under  the  same  name, 
and  never  found  leisure  to  work  them  out,  you  must 
not  take  my  names  too  seriously.  E.  pinnatum  is  so 
large  and  distinct  and  brilliant  in  its  tone  of  yellow,  that 
it  is  beyond  dispute  the  finest  of  them.  I  can  never 
make  up  my  mind  which  is  the  better  plan  to  follow, 
whether  to  cut  down  the  leathery  green  leaves  in  winter, 
and  so  see  the  shepherd's  crooks  of  flower-spikes  from 
their  first  appearance  and  enjoy  the  yellow  bouquet 
until  a  sharp  frost  burns  the  tallest  of  them,  or  to  leave 
the  handsome  foliage  on,  and  part  it  with  one's  hand 
to  see  the  flowers  below,  that  thus  protected  are  safe 
275 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

from  cold  snaps.  E.  rubrum,  with  crimson  and  yellow 
flowers  and  beautifully  mottled  red  and  raw-sienna  leaves, 
is  my  next  favourite,  and  a  pale  yellow- flowered  form 
with  somewhat  similar  colouring  in  the  young  leaves  is 
better  than  the  pale  and  small  form  of  pinnatum  whose 
flowers  are  a  pretty  sulphur  yellow,  but  takes  no  pains 
with  the  painting  of  its  leaves.  E.  macranthum  has  lilac 
flowers  with  four  long  horns  like  those  of  a  snail  in 
shape,  and  is  supposed  to  be  closely  related  to  the 
lilac  and  snow-white  forms  that  are  known  by  many 
catalogue  names,  but  are  all  lovely  and  not  quite  so 
easy  to  grow  as  the  yellow  and  red-flowered  species. 
Our  British  E.  alpinum  has  the  dullest  flowers,  but  I 
consider  the  most  effective  leaves  of  all,  especially  for 
forming  a  carpet  among  shrubs.  An  occasional  treat  in 
the  way  of  a  mulch  of  leaf  mould  will  keep  these  Barren- 
worts  happy  for  years  in  many  an  overhung  corner  that 
would  be  hard  to  furnish  pleasantly  with  other  plants. 

We  have  almost  completed  our  Spring  tour  of  the  rock 
garden;  the  only  portions  that  remain  to  be  explored  are  the 
path  between  the  oldest  bank  and  the  top  of  the  triangle, 
and  the  moraines.  This  path  we  have  now  reached  by 
descending  the  steps  and  passing  the  Epimediums.  It  is 
wide,  and  many  things  sow  themselves  in  it  that  I  like  to 
see  there,  so  please  do  not  tread  on  Er  odium  romanum's 
rosettes  of  ferny  leaves  and  slender  stems  of  dainty  rosy 
flowers  just  now  commencing  to  open,  for  if  you  do  not 
crush  them  they  will  continue  blooming  all  through  the 
season.  It  grows  wild  on  the  walls  of  the  Coliseum  at 
Rome,  and  my  plants  are  descendants  of  some  brought 
276 


My  Rock  Garden 


from  thence,  and  the  hard  gravel  path  may  remind  them 
of  their  former  home,  for  they  grow  much  better  in  it  than 
in  the  border,  keeping  a  neater  habit  and  resisting  winter 
wet  better.  Geranium  atlanticum  is  making  a  brave  show 
of  blue  flowers  shot  with  red ;  it  does  not  grow  in  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  as  an  ingenious  friend  imagined  its  name 
implied,  but  on  Mount  Atlas.  It  is  not  sufficiently  well- 
known,  as  the  beautiful,  finely-cut  leaves  appear  with  the 
autumn  rains  and  make  a  charming  carpet  to  otherwise 
bare  spots,  and  Crocuses,  especially  autumnal  species,  seem 
quite  happy  growing  among  the  leaves.  The  moraines 
were  described  in  a  former  chapter,  but  I  must  show  you 
how  charming  Dianthus  microlepis  and  Freynei  are  in  the 
edge  of  the  Farrer  moraine.  Microlepis  is  a  flat  tuft  of  grey 
set  all  over  with  stemless  flowers  of  a  rosy-salmon  colour, 
reminding  one  of  Silene  acaulis  in  the  Alps,  whose  green 
pincushions  are  here  among  the  granite  chips  but  refuse 
to  wear  any  pinheads  of  flower  buds  in  this  lowland 
garden.  D.  Freynei  is  a  white-flowered  counterpart  of 
microlepis  as  I  know  it,  but  I  have  some  doubts  as  to  their 
distinction,  and  should  never  be  surprised  to  find  that  both 
my  plants  were  but  colour  forms  of  one  and  the  same. 
Linaria  alpina  sows  itself  amiably  among  its  betters,  and 
most  of  the  plants  are  the  self-coloured  lilac  form  called 
v.  concolor,  descendants  of  some  collected  on  Mt.  Cenis, 
and  they  vary  a  good  deal  in  the  shade  of  lilac  and  the  white 
or  grey  of  the  spots  that  decorate  their  rabbit-shaped  noses 
instead  of  the  glowing  orange  ones  of  the  type.  Lewisia 
parviflom  is  flowering  in  a  dry  overhung  corner,  and  but 
for  belonging  to  so  renowned  a  family  would  not  be 
277 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

thought  much  of.  But  look  at  Ranunculus  amplexicaulis 
major  in  the  piped  bed  opposite  bearing  on  several  tall, 
branching  stems  the  largest  white  Buttercups  I  have 
ever  seen.  Here  indeed  it  is  a  glorious  thing.  Another 
plant  in  ordinary  border  soil  is  not  so  fine,  so  I  feel  my 
lead  pipe  and  sandy  mixtures  are  worth  fussing  over  to 
produce  such  a  thing  as  this.  There  are  sixteen  of  the 
glistening  white  flowers  open  and  a  few  are  over,  but  many 
buds  are  preparing  to  carrying  on  the  display:  even 
R.  pyrenaeus,  which  is  very  beautiful  in  other  parts  of  the 
garden,  .takes  second  place  to  this.  Under  it  the  ground 
is  carpeted  with  the  Blue  Daisy,  Bellis  rotundifolia  coeru- 
lescens,  a  crop  of  self-sown  seedlings,  which  found  this  bed 
just  what  they  wanted,  and  the  grey-lilac  flowers  are  very 
pretty  in  a  good  mass  like  this,  but  blue  is  only  a  courtesy 
title  I  fear.  Androsace  Henryi  likes  its  home  too,  and  has 
sent  up  a  score  of  its  round  heads  of  small,  white  flowers 
above  the  crenate  and  cordate  leaves  that  look  so  unlike 
those  of  ordinary  members  of  the  family.  A.  earned  in 
several  forms,  all  from  Mt.  Cenis,  whether  white  or  rosy, 
are  pretty  among  the  Gentiana  verna.  Primula  integrifolia, 
who  lives  in  a  marsh  in  her  native  Pyrenees,  grows  and 
flowers  under  the  shade  of  a  stone  just  behind  the  colony 
of  P.  pedemontana.  Senecio  incanus  makes  tufts  of  lovely 
silver  fern  leaves,  but  refuses  to  flower  when  starved  in  the 
granite  chips  or  to  live  at  all  if  planted  in  fatter  soil. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  plants  that  catch  my  eye  on 
this  May  day,  but  a  week  hence  others  will  have  taken 
their  places  and  the  face  of  the  rock  garden  be  changed, 
but  this  chapter  must  not  go  on  for  another  week. 
278 


CHAPTER   XVII 
The  Culmination  of  Spring 

IF  a  fairy  godmother  or  a  talking  fish  offered  me  three 
wishes  I  think  one  would  be  to  have  the  clock  stopped 
for  six  months  on  a  fine  morning  towards  the  end  of  May. 
Then,  perhaps,  I  might  have  time  to  enjoy  the  supreme 
moment  of  the  garden.  And  I  am  not  at  all  sure  the 
second  wish  would  not  be  used  to  extend  the  period.  It 
must  be  after  those  plaguey  Ice  Saints  have  finished  play- 
ing the  fool  with  the  weather,  and  when  there  comes  a 
spell  that  is  neither  too  hot  nor  too  cold,  but  just  the 
climate  one  would  expect  to  meet  with  in  Heaven,  and  in 
England  sometimes  comes  to  us  in  late  May  and  Sep- 
tember. The  tall  Tulips  would  be  at  their  best,  Iris 
florentina  and  its  early  companions  in  full  glory,  Lilacs 
and  Apple-blossom,  Hawthorn  and  Laburnum,  all  masses 
of  flower.  Trees  full  of  tender  green,  yet  not  too  densely 
clad  to  prevent  our  seeing  the  architecture  of  the  boughs. 
The  Mulberry  would  be  in  leaf  and  showing  that  frosts 
have  ceased,  for  it  is  the  wisest  of  all  trees,  and  always 
waits  till  it  is  quite  safe  before  it  opens  its  buds.  I  like 
to  get  all  my  gardening  friends  to  visit  me  in  May  ;  they 
respect  me  and  my  gardening  then,  whereas  later  on  they 
are  apt  to  be  critical,  seeing  how  some  plants  begin  to 
burn  up,  and  noting  the  poverty  of  our  soil,  as  shown  by 
279 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

stunted  herbaceous  plants  and  gaps  where  early  flowering 
things  have  retired  below,  and  we  dare  not  attempt  annuals, 
as  might  be  done  in  better  soils.  I  grudge  no  plotting  and 
planning,  no  preparation  and  waiting,  that  will  bear  full 
fruit  at  this  period.  I  was  born  in  the  middle  of  May,  and 
perhaps  some  mystic  influence  crept  into  me  from  those 
first  weeks  of  my  life.  Most  of  the  scents  of  this  time  are 
delicious.  Wistaria  one  can  never  sniff  up  too  much  of ; 
Azaleas  are  pleasant  if  kept  out-of-doors,  and  even  Haw- 
thorn is  good  blown  from  a  distance,  while  Irises,  Lilacs, 
Double  Gorse,  Pansies,  Lily  of  the  Valley,  and  Cowslips 
are  all  things  to  bring  close  to  one's  nose.  Later  in  the 
year  come  heavy  stuffing  scents,  as  the  sixteenth-century 
writers  called  them — Elder,  Syringa,  Lime,  and  such  far- 
reaching,  Hay-fever  producers  ;  but  now  it  is  good  to  open 
one's  nostrils  wide.  There  is  one  exception,  and  that  is 
the  most  fiendish  plant  I  know  of,  the  sort  of  thing  Beelze- 
bub might  pluck  to  make  a  bouquet  for  his  mother-in-law 
— the  Hairy  Arum,  Helicodiceros  crinitus,  which  looks  as  if  it 
had  been  made  out  of  a  sow's  ear  for  spathe,  and  the  tail 
of  a  rat  that  died  of  Elephantiasis  for  the  spadix.  The 
whole  thing  is  a  mingling  of  unwholesome  greens,  livid 
purples,  and  pallid  pinks,  the  livery  of  putrescence  in  fact, 
and  it  possesses  an  odour  to  match  the  colouring.  I  once 
entrapped  the  vicar  of  a  poor  parish  into  smelling  it,  and 
when  he  had  recovered  his  breath  he  said  it  reminded  him 
of  a  pauper  funeral.  It  only  exhales  this  stench  for  a  few 
hours  after  opening,  and  during  that  time  it  is  better  to 
stand  afar  off  and  look  at  it  through  a  telescope.  It  attracts 
all  the  Green  Bottle-flies  of  the  district,  who  think  there 
280 


The  Culmination  of  Spring 

must  be  some  extra  gamey  carrion  down  in  its  bristly 
throat,  and  hurry  in  to  the  feast,  passing  easily  over  the 
stiff  bristles  that  point  inwards  in  the  narrowed  portion  of 
the  passage.  But  once  in  they  find  these  fleshy  hairs 
prevent  their  getting  out  again,  and  on  a  sunny  day  the 
large  chamber  soon  gets  filled  with  flies,  chiefly  the  bur- 
nished, green-tailed  Lucilia  Caesar.  The  females  lay  quan- 
tities of  eggs  on  the  walls,  and  in  a  few  days  the  interior 
is  a  putrid  mass  of  dead  flies  and  crawling  maggots,  and 
the  desired  ends  of  both  fly  and  flower  are  defeated.  For 
the  maggots  soon  starve  for  want  of  more  food  than  is 
supplied  by  the  bodies  of  their  defunct  parents,  and  the 
ovaries  of  the  flower  are  rotted  by  the  damp  mass.  I 
suppose  in  its  native  Corsican  home  things  happen  dif- 
ferently. Probably  it  is  visited  by  some  more  strongly 
built  insect — perhaps  even  carrion-feeding  beetles,  whose 
strength  helps  them  to  struggle  out  more  easily  when  the 
pollen  is  shed  and  the  stiff  bristles  begin  to  grow  flaccid  ;  or 
again  a  larger  number  of  plants  in  flower  at  one  time  would 
mean  more  accommodation  for  carrion-loving  visitors,  and 
the  suffocating  crowding  of  the  inner  chamber  would  be 
avoided.  In  English  gardens  there  are  seldom  more  than 
two  of  the  flowers  open  on  the  same  day,  and  there  is  no 
lack  of  flies  at  their  period  of  flowering.  I  like  astonishing 
people  who  have  not  seen  this  flower  before  by  cutting 
away  a  portion  of  the  wall  of  the  lower  chamber  and 
allowing  the  entrapped  flies  to  escape.  After  a  fine  morn- 
ing there  will  generally  be  enough  of  them  inside  to  make 
a  good  swarm  and  to  take  a  minute  or  two  to  buzz  out  of 
an  opening  an  inch  square.  I  have  never  seen  it  set  any 
281 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

seed,  even  after  I  have  liberated  the  flies.  The  commoner 
black  Arum,  Dracunculus  vulgaris,  never  gets  choked  up 
in  the  same  way,  and  occasionally  bears  a  few  red  berries  in 
September,  showing  that  some  visitors  have  effected  its 
fertilisation.  The  leaves  of  Helicodiceros  are  very  curious, 
and  worth  examining  carefully.  They  are  of  the  general 
arrow-head  plan  so  frequent  among  aroids,  but  are  divided 
into  several  lobes,  and  the  barbs  of  the  arrow-heads  are 
twisted  until  they  stand  upright  and  form  two  horns,  which 
peculiarity  has  furnished  the  generic  name  Helicodiceros — 
that  is,  the  spirally  twisted  two-horned. 

It  was  on  a  glorious  day  in  late  May  that  many  of  the 
photographs  that  illustrate  this  book  were  taken,  and  I 
want  to  lead  you  round  in  the  track  of  the  photographer 
to  describe  some  of  the  results. 

The  Chusan  Fan  Palm  outside  the  morning-room 
window  was  within  a  few  days  of  opening  its  large  bunches 
of  flowers.  At  this  early  stage  they  look  somewhat  like 
yellow  cauliflower,  but  when  open  are  more  spread  out 
and  lighter  in  effect.  They  are  particularly  interesting, 
as  this  specimen  appears  to  be  a  peculiar  one,  and  though 
in  most  seasons  its  flowers  are  wholly  male,  bearing 
only  pollen,  now  and  then  a  few  of  the  last  flowers  to 
open  on  the  spikes  are  furnished  with  ovaries,  and  twice 
I  have  known  it  to  set  fruits  which  swelled  to  a  fair  size 
before  severe  winter  frosts  destroyed  them.  I  have  shown 
specimens  of  the  two  kinds  of  flowers  and  also  immature 
fruit  at  the  Scientific  Committee  of  the  Royal  Horticultural 
Society,  and  have  not  as  yet  heard  of  another  instance 
of  a  monoecious  specimen  of  Trachycarpus  excelsus.  This 
282 


The  Culmination  of  Spring 

one  has  stood  here  about  fifteen  years,  and  was  when  I 
first  planted  it  quite  a  small  plant,  and  I  used  to  water 
it  overhead  its  first  summer  from  an  ordinary  waterpot; 
now  its  stem  is  about  seven  feet  high.  It  has  a  very  good 
position,  sheltered  from  the  north-east  by  the  end  of  the 
house  and  from  the  north-west  by  the  conservatory,  so  that 
our  worst  winds  never  touch  it,  though  it  has  to  stand  the 
rough  and  tumble  of  a  sou'-wester  now  and  then  which 
tears  its  leaves.  Wind  is  the  worst  enemy  of  this  hardy 
palm.  It  smiles  at  snow,  for  as  the  leaves  get  weighted 
with  it,  they  slope  gently  down  until  an  avalanche  slides 
off  and  up  they  go  again  to  collect  another  load.  I  cut 
off,  the  lowest  ring  of  leaves  twice  in  each  season,  as  I  like 
to  see  the  clean  outline  of  the  stem.  The  photograph 
was  taken  before  I  had  operated  on  it  this  Spring,  and  it 
looks  rather  clumsy  on  account  of  the  hanging  lower 
leaves.  I  have  several  other  specimens  of  the  same  palm 
in  the  garden,  but  this  is  the  largest  and  oldest.  We  call 
one  border  the  Eremurus  bed,  because  it  contains  groups 
of  those  stately  plants  from  its  commencement  under  the 
old  Cedar  down  to  the  portion  that  is  shaded  by  a  vener- 
able Portugal  Laurel  shaped  like  a  large  umbrella,  under 
which  they  would  refuse  to  grow.  E.  Elwesianus,  a  group 
of  which  is  shown  facing  page  200,  is  the  handsomest  of  the 
family,  and  that  means  a  great  deal,  and  its  white  form 
grows  quite  as  tall  as  the  pink  one.  They  have  not  been 
very  happy  this  season,  as  the  unusually  mild  January 
tempted  them  through,  and  they  were  soon  as  forward  as 
they  should  have  been  in  mid-March,  only  to  learn  that 
the  air  was  not  ready  for  them,  so  that  the  spikes  got 
283 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

checked  and  did  not  reach  their  usual  height.  We  find 
they  like  to  have  their  crowns  only  just  beneath  the  sur- 
face, and  a  little  raised,  so  that  the  long,  fleshy  roots,  radiat- 
ing from  the  crown  like  spokes  from  the  hub  of  a  wheel, 
or  the  legs  of  a  Brittle  Starfish  from  its  circular  body, 
may  slope  downwards  into  the  soil.  When  planting  we 
lay  them  out  in  the  hole  dug  for  them,  pour  a  potful  of 
sand  over  the  crown,  and  then  gently  raise  it  two  or  three 
inches  so  that  the  sand  runs  beneath  it  and  supports  it. 
They  are  greedy  feeders,  and  enjoy  a  mulch  of  good 
manure ;  Wellson's,  which  is  practically  dried  sheep  manure, 
seems  to  agree  with  them.  So  we  spread  a  layer  of  it  on 
the  soil  as  soon  as  the  great  crown  has  pushed  through, 
and  in  a  very  short  time  the  yellow,  feeding  rootlets  will 
have  found  it  and  pushed  up  thickly  to  gather  the 
nutriment.  E.  himalaicus  likes  a  cooler  position  than 
others,  but  its  hybrid  him-rob,  like  robustus,  is  happiest 
in  full  sun  and  on  well-drained  soil.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
vigorous,  and  falls  little  short  of  Elwesianus  in  size,  but  is 
at  its  best  rather  later  in  the  season.  The  yellow  and 
tawny  ones  mostly  belong  to  next  month,  and  so  to  another 
volume. 

E.  Tubergenii,  however,  a  hybrid  between  himalaicus 
and  Bungei,  flowers  with  its  white  parent,  and  Bungei 
praecox  should  be  opening  the  lowest  blossoms  of  its  spike 
before  May  has  gone.  We  do  not  believe  in  covering  the 
young  growths  unless  something  especially  arctic  in  the 
weather  line  catches  them  when  the  young  flower-spikes 
are  visible  in  the  open  cups  formed  by  the  leaves.  If  the 
crowns  are  covered  when  first  through  they  are  hurried 
284 


The  Culmination  of  Spring 

along  too  fast,  and  the  leaves  are  sure  to  be  nipped  and 
disfigured.  I  like  to  plant  autumn-flowering  Crocuses 
among  them  and  deeper  than  the  Eremuri,  so  that  they 
may  come  spearing  through  between  their  spokes  and  make 
a  show  in  the  necessarily  large  space  occupied  by  the  giants, 
and  which  would  be  bare  and  uninteresting  after  their  rest- 
ing season  commences.  I  also  plant  Gypsophila  paniculata 
behind  the  Eremurus  clumps,  and  keep  it  staked  till  they 
die  down  and  then  remove  the  ties  and  let  it  fall  over  the 
space.  The  next  long  border  is  backed  by  a  Holly  hedge 
that  gives  protection  to  some  rather  delicate  shrubs,  and 
among  them  are  some  of  my  beloved  Eucalypts,  and  one 
of  them  is  in  flower,  as  the  illustration  facing  p.  232  shows. 
The  buds  were  formed  last  autumn,  and  have  been  opening 
a  few  at  a  time  ever  since  last  November.  I  am  rather 
proud  of  this  specimen,  because  it  was  raised  from  seed  I 
gathered  on  a  large  one  that  lived  many  years  in  the  rock 
garden  and  was  quite  a  timber  tree.  The  fluffy  yellow 
flowers  are  very  pretty  among  the  wonderfully  blue  leaves. 
It  is  E.  cordata,  a  Tasmanian  species,  and  one  of  the  hardiest, 
but  very  difficult  to  get  true  to  name.  It  is  very  similar 
in  appearance  to  E.  pulverulenta  from  Victoria,  which  is 
even  more  brilliant  in  its  colouring,  as  the  young  leaves 
are  shot  with  pink  and  the  whole  plant  is  very  mealy  and 
blue,  but  is  not  so  hardy  as  cordata,  and  has  more  than 
once  been  killed  outright  by  a  winter  that  spared  the  Tas- 
manian species. 

Crossing  the  old  bowling-green  lawn  we  get  a  charm- 
ing picture  of  beautiful  foliage  and  soft  colouring  which 
is  shown  facing  p.  248.     It  is  at  the  back  of  Tom  Tiddler's 
285 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

ground  behind  the  purple-leaved  plants,  some  of  which 
form  the  background  to  this  picture.  The  bed  is  edged 
with  a  broad  band  of  Hellebores.  The  Christmas  Rose, 
H.  niger,  nearest  to  us,  and  various  named  forms  of  Lenten 
Roses  at  the  further  end,  are  planted  in  a  bold  group  and 
running  right  up  to  the  stem  of  the  Yew  tree  seen  at  the 
back.  The  foreground  is  part  of  a  band  of  various  species 
of  Geranium  which  runs  for  some  distance  along  the  lawn 
front  of  this  bed  and  contains  many  treasures,  results  of 
my  own  foreign  wanderings  and  gleanings  from  other 
gardens,  for  I  always  keep  an  open  eye  for  a  Geranium  I 
have  not  got.  The  leaves  and  buds  shown  here  are  of  a  fine 
blue-purple  form  of  G.  ibericum ;  then,  as  all  can  see,  there 
is  a  grouping  of  Dicentra  spectabilis,  chiefly  of  the  old  pink 
form,  as  it  is  still  the  best.  One  plant  is  the  white,  or  speak- 
ing more  truthfully,  flesh-coloured  variety,  and  the  dumpy 
one,  the  second  counting  from  the  right-hand  side,  is  the 
newer  form  erecta,  interesting  to  grow  with  the  others 
but  without  the  graceful  beauty  of  the  old  form.  The 
rounded  bush  rising  out  of  this  is  Conium  maculatum,  the 
Hemlock,  one  of  the  most  poisonous  of  plants,  and  generally 
considered  to  have  furnished  the  bowl  of  poison  by  which 
Socrates  was  put  to  death.  Gerard  denounces  it  root  and 
branch,  saying  :  "  The  greate  Hemlock  doubtlesse  is  not 
possessed  with  any  one  good  facultie,  as  appeareth  by  his 
lothsome  smell,  and  other  apparant  signes  and  therefore 
not  to  be  used  in  physicke."  But  both  leaves  and  seeds 
are  still  used  to  yield  the  alkaloid  Conine,  which  has  a 
peculiar  sedative  action  on  the  motor  nerves,  and  therefore 
is  occasionally  prescribed. 

286 


The  Culmination  of  Spring 

An  old  man  used  to  supply  a  great  firm  of  druggists 
with  the  dried  plant  at  a  much  lower  rate  than  they  could 
obtain  it  from  any  other  source.  When  through  age  he 
announced  that  he  must  give  up  the  business  he  was  asked 
how  he  had  always  managed  to  undersell  others,  and  he 
told  a  delightful  tale  of  a  cunning  practice.  He  used  to 
wander  about  in  the  Eastern  Counties  sowing  Hemlock 
seeds  in  any  waste  corner  near  cultivated  lands,  then  when 
the  plant  was  fully  grown  he  called  upon  the  farmer  and 
told  him  that  a  dreadfully  poisonous  plant  grew  on  his 
land,  and  would  kill  beasts  if  eaten  by  them,  and  that  for 
a  small  sum  he  would  clear  it  away.  He  was  generally 
paid  for  collecting  his  harvest,  grown  rent  free  on  other 
folks'  land,  and  therefore  could  afford  to  sell  it  so  cheaply. 
Besides  its  medicinal  value  it  is  a  very  beautiful  garden 
plant,  so  in  spite  of  Gerard  I  grow  it.  It  is  unfortunately 
biennial  or  at  any  rate  monocarpic,  but  makes  the  most  of 
its  short  life  by  keeping  brilliantly  green  through  the  winter. 
The  leaves  are  as  exquisitely  cut  as  any  I  know  of,  and 
wonderfully  glossy.  All  through  last  winter  these  large 
leaves  and  the  already  developing  central  shoot  were  as 
beautiful  as  anything  in  the  garden,  and  then  from  early 
Spring  till  the  seeds  were  ripe  in  July  the  fine  specimen 
shown  in  the  photograph  was  always  a  thing  of  beauty, 
although  it  was  growing  under  the  shade  of  an  old  Scots  Pine, 
and  not  the  least  of  the  Hemlock's  virtues  is  this  amiable 
habit  of  growing  and  looking  happy  in  any  waste  shady 
corner.  Beyond  the  Pine  stem  a  good  group  of  Thalictrum 
aquilegiaefolium  was  delightfully  effective  against  the  purple 
of  Prunus  Pissardii  and  Barbery.  It  is  composed  of  some  . 
287 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


picked  forms  with  extra  rich  purple  and  red  colouring  in 
the  filaments,  some  from  Mt.  Cenis  meadows,  other  seed- 
lings I  have  raised  here  from  good  forms,  but  the  last  one 
towards  the  Yew  is  the  pure  white  form  that  occurs  in 
sub-alpine  woods  and  came  home  with  me  one  year  from 
Airolo.  These  are  very  ordinary  plants,  but  growing  in 
this  grouping  they  gave  me  great  pleasure.  The  path 
shown  leads  straight  away  to  the  river  bank,  and  when 
viewed  from  its  centre  shows  as  a  finish,  one  of  the  beds 
of  the  Terrace.  At  this  moment  it  was  aglow  with  Clara 
»  Butt  Tulip,  and  through  the  summer  months  we  keep  it 
flaming  away  with  Salvia  splendens,  Pride  of  Zurich. 

The  Pergola  Garden  and  its  warm,  well-sheltered 
borders  are  full  of  interest  just  now.  Erysimum  pumilum 
from  Mt.  Cenis  is  happier  here  than  anywhere  in  the  rock 
garden,  and  one  of  the  most  brilliant,  clear-yellow  flowers 
imaginable.  I  was  astounded  at  its  beauty  the  first  time  I 
saw  it  growing  on  the  rough,  rocky  shore  of  the  lake  among 
Gentiana  angulosa  and  sheets  of  Globularia  and  Dryas, 
almost  dazzling  in  its  brilliancy.  It  looked  so  good- 
tempered  and  even  aged  there,  that  I  marvelled  why  I  had 
never  seen  it  in  English  gardens.  It  flowers  here  as  well 
as  there,  one  solid  mass  only  three  inches  high  of  Wall- 
flower blossoms  of  purest  yellow,  but  I  must  own  that  it 
has  a  way  of  dying  off  after  flowering  here,  that  its  woody 
stock  and  antique  appearance  on  the  Cenis  show  to  be  due 
to  something  lacking  in  this  lowland  situation,  and  so  we 
have  to  look  out  carefully  for  seeds  or  self-sown  seedlings. 
Ribes  speciosus  is  a  sprawling  octopus  whose  tentacles  are 
covered  with  brown  spines  and  crimson  Fuchsia  blossoms. 
288 


Symphytum  aspernmum.     (See  p.  294.) 


The  Culmination  of  Spring 

Olearia  myrsinites,  a  good  evergreen  for  the  dull  months,  is 
now  smothered  in  its  white  flowers,  that  make  up  in  their 
quantity  for  their  rather  small  size.  Round  its  feet  are 
some  clumps  of  Wild  Hyacinths,  Dutch-raised  seedlings 
of  wonderful  charm.  I  first  saw  them  at  the  great  Jubilee 
Haarlem  Show.  The  most  distinct  appears  in  lists  as 
Scilla  nutans  delicata,  and  is  of  the  true  nutans  type  with 
its  pendant  bells  and  long  bracts,  very  nearly  white  but 
with  a  delightful  pale  blue  edge  to  each  segment.  Robin 
Hood  is  flesh  colour  and  not  quite  a  pure  nutans,  having 
just  a  touch  of  the  open  bells  of  hispanica,  as  it  appears  we 
must  now  call  the  Scilla  companulata  of  lists  and  one's 
early  days.  The  correct  scientific  name  for  the  common 
Bluebell  is  changed  so  often,  and  the  highest  authorities 
disagree  so  endlessly,  that  I  never  know  what  to  use  for  it. 
The  Kew  Index  and  Kew  Hand-List  and  the  1895  edition  of 
the  London  Catalogue  all  agree  that  it  is  Scilla  festalis  of 
Salisbury  ;  but  the  1908  edition  of  the  London  Catalogue 
makes  it  Scilla  nonscripta  Hoffmgg  and  Link  ;  while  the 
British  Museum  favours  Endymion  non-scriptum  Garcke 
Fl.  Deutschl.  and  the  Abb<§  Coste,  the  latest  French 
authority,  prefers  Endymion  nutans  Dumont,  and  it  seems 
high  time  that  a  sort  of  Esperanto  name  compounded  of 
the  lot  was  made  for  it.  Whatever  its  name  may  be  it  does 
well  here,  and  I  have  it  in  many  colours  :  the  mauve  pink 
forms  are  very  pretty  in  clumps  among  a  bold  massing  of 
the  white,  and  look  better  there  than  when  planted  among 
the  blue  form.  S.  hispanica  has  many  good  forms,  too — 
red,  blue,  and  white.  The  best  of  all  is  maxima,  and  when 
it  has  become  established  and  likes  its  home,  and  takes  a 
289  T 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

pride  in  its  great  spikes  of  cups  of  palest  blue  with  deeper 
streaks  on  them,  it  is  the  noblest  of  all  Scillas.  There  is 
a  white  form  of  maxima  that  is  not  so  robust  as  the  blue, 
but  is  a  good  thing  for  semi-shade.  I  have  planted  it 
among  some  good  forms  of  British  ferns  in  the  shade  of 
an  Evergreen  Oak  and  the  effect  is  very  good.  The  beds 
in  the  garden  in  front  of  the  wall  are  edged  with  stone- 
paved  walks,  and  I  like  to  plant  something  along  the  edges 
that  will  grow  out  over  the  flags,  so  one  bed  has  several 
forms  of  Cheiranthus  alpinus  and  Alyssum  saxatile  used 
thus.  The  lemon-yellow  form  var.  citrinum  is  very  effective 
next  to  the  double  one  of  this  latter  plant,  and  contrasts  well 
with  the  many  shades  of  brown,  crimson,  and  purple  of 
what  is  often  wrongly  called  Cheiranthus  mutabilis,  the  name 
of  a  half-hardy,  shrubby  plant  from  Madeira.  I  know  that 
is  wrong,  but  am  not  sure  it  is  right  to  call  it  C.  alpinus 
versicolor  as  I  do.  Anyway  it  is  a  good  thing,  and  much 
better  than  a  paler  form  known  as  C.  Dillenii.  The  darker 
and  better  plant  has  of  late  years  hybridised  spontaneously 
with  C.  Allionii  in  several  gardens,  and  has  produced  some 
fine  plants  with  deep  orange  flowers  changing  with  age  to 
blood  red:  that  known  as  Miss  King's  or  Newark  Park 
Variety  is  the  best  coloured  of  them,  but  here  it  has  a 
lanky  habit  and  flowers  itself  to  death,  and  we  prefer 
one  that  appeared  spontaneously  in  the  rock  garden  and 
has  a  dwarfer  habit  and  makes  more  growth.  It  is  a  fine 
mass  of  rich  orange  and  red  brown  in  May,  and  especially 
pleasing  here  on  the  grey  stones. 

Between  this  paved  garden  and  the  river  there  is  a 
formal  Rose  Garden,  in  the  centre  of  which  stands  the  old 
290 


The  Culmination  of  Spring 

Enfield  Market  Cross  dismissed  from  the  market-place 
to  make  way  for  a  King  Edward  VII  Coronation  Memorial. 
After  a  year  or  two  of  unhonoured  repose  in  a  builder's 
yard  it  came  here  for  a  quiet  time  among  the  roses,  and 
makes  a  splendid  support  and  background  for  that  lovely 
single-flowered  climber  Rosa  laemgata  Anemone.  The 
protection  suits  its  habits  and  the  grey  of  the  old  stones  its 
complexion,  and  in  the  end  of  May  and  onwards  it  is  a 
fine  sight  flinging  its  long  growths  through  and  over  the 
arches  of  the  old  cross,  and  bearing  hundreds  of  the  glori- 
ous pink  flowers  as  large  as  teacup  saucers.  It  has  now 
pushed  its  growths  through  to  the  north  side,  and  as  the 
last  winter  was  so  mild  they  bore  as  many  and  as  fine 
blooms  as  those  on  the  south  side.  A  pergola  of  wooden 
poles  and  cross-pieces  runs  down  at  right  angles  to  the 
wall,  and  divides  this  Rose  Garden  from  another  parallelo- 
gram of  garden  with  stone-flagged  paths,  and  an  octagonal 
piece  of  black  and  white  pavement  round  a  sundial  some- 
where about  its  centre.  A  second  and  smaller  pergola, 
devoted  to  Vines,  divides  its  upper  half  at  right  angles  to 
and  leading  out  of  the  great  pergola,  and  a  flagged  path 
leads  on  from  the  sundial  across  this  Vine  pergola  up  to  a 
seat  and  an  old  stone  pedestal  and  vase.  You  must  come 
close  to  this,  please,  to  admire  the  shower  of  lilac  blossoms 
of  a  Solanum  crispum  that  sprawls  all  over  the  Privet 
bushes  that  cut  off  the  north  wind,  and  hangs  down  over 
the  pedestal.  It  is  the  deeper-coloured  one  known  as  the 
Glasnevin  variety,  and  though  it  was  cut  to  the  ground 
here  one  winter  has  now  made  a  trunk  worthy  of  some 
tree,  and  I  hope  may  never  suffer  so  badly  again,  for  every 
291 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Spring  since  that  resurrection  it  has  been  more  beautiful 
than  in  the  last,  and  it  contrasts  well  with  a  neighbouring 
bush  of  golden-leaved  Bramble  trained  over  poles,  which 
is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  yellow  things  in  its  dress  of 
young  leaves.  The  double-flowered  Apple,  Pyrus  coro- 
naria  fl.  pi.,  grows  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Solanum  and 
is  now  in  flower.  Its  soft,  shell-pink  flowers  are  the 
largest  of  the  Apple  family,  and  charming  next  the  lilac 
of  the  Tree  Potato.  Arenaria  montana  is  climbing  into 
Vitis  armata  on  one  of  the  pergola  poles,  and  has  got  up 
for  over  a  foot,  and  is  a  wonderful  sight,  packed  so  full  of 
its  large,  white  flowers  that  no  leaves  are  visible.  Various 
Violets  and  Epimediums  line  this  shady  Vine  Pergola  and 
appear  in  the  cracks  between  the  stones  and  make  it  look 
a  century  old  instead  of  its  actual  five  years.  A  pretty 
corner  of  the  sundial  opening  has  a  carpet  of  the  grey, 
finely-cut  leaves  of  a  good  form  of  Geranium  tuberosum, 
and  over  this  a  cloud  of  its  soft,  lilac-pink  blossoms  on  tall 
and  slender  stems.  Some  clumps  of  mauve  and  pink 
Darwin  Tulips  are  next  it  and  among  it,  and  behind  a 
bush  of  Ribes  cruenta  is  covered  with  its  curious  half-and- 
half  dark  crimson,  and  pure  white  flowers.  Euphorbia 
dulcis  fol.  var.  rises  out  of  an  edging  of  pink  and  lavender 
dwarf  Phloxes,  and  is  a  perfect-shaped  round  bush  of 
green  and  white  leaves  crowned  with  the  mass  of  cream 
and  ivory  bracts  of  its  flower-heads.  A  very  beautiful 
plant,  and  far  too  seldom  seen,  though  it  needs  a  little 
looking  after;  the  plain  green  shoots  that  appear  among 
the  variegated  ones  must  be  removed,  and  cuttings  should 
be  struck  every  two  or  three  years  for  renewal,  as  old 
292 


The  Culmination  of  Spring 

plants  are  liable  to  be  killed  in  severe  winters  more  easily 
than  youngsters. 

Another  unusual  plant  growing  close  by  is  Bunium 
rotundifolium,  very  much  like  Thaspium  aureum  but  peren- 
nial instead  of  biennial  like  the  latter.  Both  have  charm- 
ingly glossy  leaves  of  the  Parsnip  persuasion  but  not  so 
coarse  as  the  real  members  of  that  sect,  and  when  old 
enough  to  flower  they  send  up  foot-high  stems  with  brilliant 
yellow  bracts  surrounding  the  umbels  of  greenish-yellow 
flowers,  and  are  wonderfully  bright  and  suggestive  of  some 
very  good  Euphorbia.  Both  will  grow  happily  in  shady, 
poor  ground,  and  furnish  it  in  the  best  taste,  as  advertise- 
ments put  it. 

Parallel  with  the  Vine  Pergola  and  nearer  the  River 
the  next  paved  walk  has  a  row  of  Eucalypts  on  either  side. 
I  have  tried  for  years  to  get  a  short  avenue  of  them  here, 
but  some  grow  lanky  and  blow  over,  some  are  too  tender 
for  the  winters,  and  others  grow  into  rounded  bushes,  so 
that  at  present  they  are  all  heights  from  four  to  fifteen 
feet.  E.  cocci/era,  E.  urnigera,  and  E.  obliqua  promise  to 
make  the  best  job  of  it  at  present.  Tufted  Pansies,  such  as 
Archie  Grant  and  Maggie  Mott,  line  the  edges  of  this  path, 
and  the  bed  alongside  the  corresponding  walk  in  the  Rose 
Garden  opposite  is  planted  under  the  Roses  with  white  and 
yellow  Pansies  gradually  shading  through  pale  yellow 
sorts  edged  with  lilac,  such  as  Skylark  and  Duchess  of 
Fife,  to  the  lavender  Kitty  Bell  and  then  to  deeper  violet 
varieties.  The  white  and  yellow  ones  have  a  charming  effect 
planted  in  blocks  of  varying  sizes.  Royal  Sovereign,  Maggie 
Clunas,  Bullion,  and  Primrose  Dame  are  good  yellows,  and 
293 


My  Garden  in  Spring 

Snowflake,  White  Swan,  and  Purity  hard  to  beat  for  white. 
We  have  a  good  creamy  white  one  with  deep  blue  face- 
marks  on  it  called  Beauty  of  Hedsor,  that  is  very  useful 
for  cutting,  as  like  Snowflake  it  always  has  a  good  long 
stalk.  I  like  to  pick  plenty  of  them  in  May,  as  they  are 
so  delightful  in  the  house  in  their  first  freshness,  and  so 
doing  relieves  the  young  plants  and  helps  them  to  make 
a  better  display  later  on.  Jackanapes  with  red-brown 
upper  petals  and  bright  yellow  lower  ones  is  one  of  my 
great  favourites,  and  we  have  a  band  of  him  at  the  back  of 
one  of  the  Iris  beds  and  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  path 
to  the  yellow  and  white  varieties  of  the  Rose  bed.  But 
come  back  again  along  the  Eucalyptus  Avenue  (how  grand 
it  sounds  and  how  short  and  poor  it  is  !).  I  want  to  show 
you  a  very  beautiful  Comfrey  that  grows  at  the  side  of  the 
steps  that  form  the  end  of  this  paved  walk.  It  is  the 
Symphytum  asperrimum,  that  such  great  things  were  ex- 
pected of  as  a  perpetual  forage  crop  many  years  ago,  but 
though  now  turned  out  of  the  farm  is  worth  a  choice 
position  in  the  garden  for  the  sake  of  its  exquisite  turquoise 
blue  flowers  and  rosy  buds.  It  came  to  me  from  the 
Cambridge  Botanic  Gardens,  where  I  first  fell  in  love  with 
it.  It  lasts  in  beauty  for  a  very  long  period,  and  if  cut 
down  is  soon  up  again  and  full  of  fresh  flowers.  The 
dark  blue  S.  causasicum  grows  close  behind  it  at  this 
corner,  and  beside  a  large  patch  of  the  blue  grass,  Elymus 
glaucus,  makes  a  very  pretty  picture.  But  then  every  way 
one  looks  on  such  a  fine  afternoon  in  May  makes  a  picture. 
Even  the  square  Georgian  house  as  seen  from  a  few  steps 
further  on  across  the  pond  looks  comfortable  and  homey 
294 


The  Culmination   of  Spring 

in  the  golden  sunlight  ;  the  very  Daisies  on  the  lawn  speak 
of  Spring,  and  either  blossom,  or  promise  of  it,  and  of 
fruit,  is  on  most  of  the  trees  and  shrubs  ;  the  ground  is  still 
moist  enough  for  planting  or  transplanting,  weeds  are 
young,  and  one  feels  even  if  left  for  another  day  or  two 
will  not  do  great  harm,  so  very  different  from  the  im- 
pression one  gets  from  the  seed-laden  sow-thistles  and 
groundsels  of  summer  days.  Yes,  when  May  is  in  good 
humour  and  smiling  I  always  feel  it  is  the  moment  to 
enjoy  the  garden,  but  once  it  is  past  and  summer  takes  its 
place  there  is  still  plenty  to  do  and  more  to  enjoy  than 
one  has  time  for,  and  so  each  season  brings  its  joys  as 
well  as  its  regrets,  and  the  wise  gardener  will  give  himself 
over  to  making  the  most  of  the  former  and  find  no  time 
for  the  latter.  If  you  have  enjoyed  strolling  round  the 
Spring  garden  with  me  and  listening  to  my  prattle,  per- 
sonal and  egotistical  as  much  of  it  has  been,  and  if  you 
have  any  sympathy  with  my  point  of  view  of  using  the 
garden  for  the  plants'  welfare  and  not  just  for  making  the 
plants  furnish  your  garden  with  art  shades,  dividing  hedges, 
or  shade  to  sit  in,  I  hope  later  on  you  will  accompany  me 
on  a  second  journey  to  review  the  summer  aspect  of  the 
place  and  plants.  For  that  is  one  of  the  greatest  charms 
of  a  mixed  collection  of  plants — it  gives  you  a  new  garden 
at  least  once  a  month,  and  in  another  ten  days  it  will  be 
no  longer  "  My  Garden  in  Spring,"  but  "  My  Garden  in 
Summer." 


295 


INDEX 


Acaena  aygentea,  272 

—  Buchananii,  272 

—  inermis,  272 
Acclimatisation  of  plants,  4 
Acer  californica  aurea,  191,  196 

—  campestre,  196,  199 

—  Negundo,  19 1 
Aconite,  Winter,  44,  115 
Acorus  Calamus,  201 
Adiantum  Capillus-Veneris,  268 
Adlumia  cirrhosa,  158 
Adonis  amurensis,  157 

,4«£/«,  171,  174 

—  hybrids,  172,  173 

—  sepiaria,  171 
Aethiopappus,  194 
Jgwe,  44,  228,  257 

—  Paryyi,  164 

—  utahensis,  164 
Ajuga  metallica  crispa,  189 

—  reptans,  189,  193,  194 
Alders,  196 

Allen,  Mr.,  52,  54,  55,  56,  97,  212, 

213 
Allium  Babingtonii,  195 

—  Chamaemoly,  in 

—  Dioscoridis,  261 

—  karataviense,  262 

—  paradoxum,  267 

—  Rosenbachianwm,  194,  258 
Almond  trees,  160,  222,  272 
Alnus  incana  aurea,  196 
Aloes,  228 
Alpine  plants,  acclimatisation  of,  4 

—  beds  for,  104 

—  Primulas,  135 
Alstroemerias,  19,  63 
Alyssunt  maritimum,  7 

—  saxatile,  290 
Amaryllis  Belladonna,  5 
Anacyclus  formosus,  102 
Andromeda  polifolia,  273 


Androsace  carnea,  278 

—  hedraeantha,  106 

—  Henryi,  278 

Anemone,  acclimatisation  of,  5,  203 

—  alpina,  219 

—  appenina,  208 

—  blanda,  and  varieties,  95,  206, 
207 

Blue  Bonnet,  214 

—  Blue  Queen,  213 

—  Chapeau  de  Cardinal,  204 

—  coronaria,  204,  205,  209 

—  double,  204,  214 

—  flaccida,  217 

—  H alien,  218 

—  hortensis,  206,  209 

—  intermedia,  216 

—  japonica,  189,  200 

—  Leeds'  Variety,  211,  212 

—  legends  of,  204,  205 

—  naturalisation  of,  209 

—  nemorosa,  209,   210,   213,   214, 
215,  216,  259 

—  pratensis  montana,  218 

—  Pulsatilla,  195,  217,  218 

—  ranunculoides,  216 

—  Robinsoniana,  211,  212,  214 

—  rubra,  218 

—  sulphurea,  219 

—  sylvestris,  218 

—  trifolia,  210,  216 
-  Vestal,  210 

--  wood,  44,  211,  213 

—  yellow,  216 
Anthemis  Cupananii,  195 
Antirrhinums,  193 
Apple  blossom,  222,  279 

double  flowered,  292 

April  showers,  161 
Aquilegia  viridiflora,  255 
Arenaria  balearica,  266 

—  montana,  292 


297 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


Arkwright,  Mr.  Edwyn,  22 
Arnott,  Mr.,  46 
Arrhenatherum  bulbosum,  201 
Artemisia,  195 

—  Absynthium,  194 

—  Halleri,  194 

—  vulgaris,  201 
Arum,  the  Hairy,  280-2 
Arundo  conspicua,  61 
Asarum  Bealei,  267 

—  grandiflorum,  267 
Ash,  dwarf,  182 

—  weeping,  223,  226,  227 
Asphodel,  the  name,  119 
Asters,  China,  204 
Astrantia  minor,  107 
Atkins,  Mr.,  48 
Atriplex  Halimus,  195 
Aubrietia,  262 
Aucubas,  178 

Azaleas,  280 

Azara  microphylla,  174 

BACON,  quoted,  3,  40 
Bamboos,  149,  177,  196 
Barberry,     Purple,  198.     See 

Berberis 

Barrenwort,  275,  276 
Beetles  as  pests,  24 
Begonias,  7,  18 

Bellis  rotundifolia  coerulescens, 
Berberis  Fremontii,  263 

—  purple,  198 
—  vulgaris,  193 

Bilbergia  nutans,  164 
Birches,  purple-leaved,  222 
Blackthorn,  winter,  161 
Bladder  senna,  259 
Blood  root,  169,  170 
Bluebells,  289 
Bog  Myrtle,  228 
Bongardia  Rauwolfii,  44 
Box,  dwarf,  265 
Boyd,  Mr.  W.  B.,  53,  55 
Bramble,  golden-leaved,  292 
Bromeliads,  164,  257 
Buckthorn,  182 
Buddleia  globosa,  7 
Bulbocodium  vernum,  104,  no, 
Bunium  rotundifolium,  293 
Burbidge,  Mr.,  46,  270 
Butcher's  Broom,  183 


also 


278 


CACTI,  106,  163,  257 
Caltha  biflora,  229 

—  leptosepela,  229 

—  monstrosa,  228 

—  palustris,  228 

—  polypetala,  152,  229 

—  radicans,  229,  273 
Camassia,  272 

—  Leichtlinii,  263 
Campanula,  272 

—  caespitosa  Miranda,  109 

—  Cenisia,  108 

—  lactiflora,  189 

—  rotundifolia,     var.     soldanalli- 
flora,  190 

Caparne,  Mr.,  229 
Caper  Spurge,  269 
Caragana,  259 
Cardamine  hirsuta,  158 
Carlina  acaulis,  152 
Caspary,  Prof.,  54 
Catalpa  tree,  14 
Cedars,  283 

—  dwarf,  265 
Celandine,  Lesser,  154 
Centaur ea  Clementei,  193 

—  pulcherrima,  194 
Cerastium  alpinum,  106 

—  tomentosum,  194 
Cercis  Siliquasirum,  223 
Cereus,  163 

—  paucispinus,  257 
Cerinthe,  199 

—  alpina,  195 
Chamaeiris,  230 
Cheiranthus  Allionii,  290 

—  alpinus,  290 

—  Dillenii,  290 
Cherry  trees,  177 

—  pink  double,  259 
Chionodoxa  gigantea,  97 

—  Luciliae,  96,  97 

—  sardensis,  95,  96,  97,  202 
—  Tmoli,  97 

Chionoscillas,  96,  97 
Choisya,  149 
Christmas  roses,  286 
Chusan  Fan  Palm,  283 
Cineraria,  193,  194 
Cistus  bushes,  149 
Citrange,  173 
Citrus  trifoliata,  171 


298 


Index 


Cladium  mariscus,  61 

Clarkias,  18 

Clay  Ionia  perfoliata,  267 

—  siberica,  267 

Clematis  pallasii,  fol.  purpureis,  258 

—  recta,  258 

Clover,  Red,  markings  on,  199 
Clusius,   Rariorum  Plantarum   His- 

toria,  1 86,  215 
Creeping  Jenny,  196 
Codonopsis,  166 
Colchicum,  68,  69 

—  crociflorum,  104 

—  hydrophilum,  103 

—  libanoticum,  103 

—  luteum,  104 
Collecting  spirit,  the,  17,  1 8 
Colour  schemes,  18,  192 
Columbines,  270 
Columnae,  143 

Colutea  arborescens,  259 

Comfrey,  294 

Conifers,  12 

Conium  maculatum,  286,  287 

Convolvulus  tenuissimus,  99 

Cornus  brachypoda  variegata,  200 

—  Mas  aureus  elegans,  201 

—  sibirica  elegantissima,  200 

—  Spaethii,  193,  196 
Cornwall  in  April,  161 
Cortusa  Matthioli,  145 
Corydalis  Allenii,  157 

—  angustifolia,  157 

—  bulbosa,  157,  158 

—  cava,  158 

—  nobilis,  158 

—  Semenowii,  158 
Corylopsis  pauciflora,  263 
Cotoneaster  horizontalis,  274 

—  tnultiflora,  267 
Cowslips,  142 
Crocuses,  62-94,  272 

—  a'erius,  72,  89 

—  atticus,  92 

—  o»cyrtf»si's,  72,  78,  82 

—  aureus,  72,  74,  75,  76,  82 

—  autumnal,  6,  7,  44,  70,  94 

—  Balansae,  72,  73,  79 

—  biflorus,  and  varieties,  86,  87 

—  byzantinus,  94 

—  Cambessedesii,  70 

—  carpetanus,  94,  199 


Crocuses,  caspius,  70 

—  chrysanthus,  71,  78,  80,  83,  84, 
86,  87,  89 

—  colourings  and  markings  of,  72, 

—  Crewei,  86 

—  derivation  of  name,  68,  69 

—  etruscus,  24 

—  fertilisation  of,  66 

—  Fleischer i,  94 

—  gargaricus,  72,  73,  79,  87 

—  graveolens,  70,  72,  79 

—  growing  shoots  of,  44 

—  habits  of,  62  ct  seq. 

—  hymenalis,  var.  Foxii,  87 

—  Imperati,  7,  24,  71,  90 

—  Korolkowii,  78,  82 

—  lacteus,  75 

—  lactiflorus,  102 

—  laevigatus,  7,  10 

—  longiflorus,  6,  7 

—  mice  as  enemies  of,  78 

—  tnoesiacus,  75 

—  Neapolitan,  90 

—  nevadensis,  199 

—  Olivieri,  72,  73,  79 

—  planting  and  arrangement  of, 
76,  77 

—  purpureus  grandiflorus,  77 

—  saffron  or  sativus,  69,  74 

—  Scharojanii,  72,  199 

—  seedling  raising,  64 

—  Sieberi,  78,  81,  92 

—  speciosus,  89 

—  spring,  62,  70 

—  sulphureus,  76 

—  swst'anws,  72,  78 

—  Suterianus,  72,  73 

—  tauri,  86,  89 

nianus,24,  77,81,93,175 
72,  75,  77,  93,  94  ' 

—  versicolor,  72,  91,  94 

—  yellow  varieties,  72 

Crown  Imperials.     See  Fritillaries 
Crucianella,  155 
Currey,  Miss,  213 
Cyananthus  lobatus,  147 
Cyclamen  cilicicum,  102 

—  coum,  101,  102,  199 

—  europaeum,  103 

—  ibericum,  48,  101,  102,  262 

—  libanoticum,  103 


299 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


Cyclamen,  markings  of,  199 

—  repandum,  102 
Cyperus  longus,  268 
Cypresses,  15 
Cytisus,  262 

—  cinereus,  273 

DAFFODILS,   117-133.     For  species 
see  Narcissus 

—  application  and  derivation  of 
name,  119 

—  Albatross,  127,  132 

—  Almira,  127 

—  Argent,  127 

—  Ariadne,  127 

—  Branston,  133 

—  Butterfly,  197 

—  Cassandra,  127 

—  Dawn,  122,  127 

—  Doctor,  124 

—  Dorothy  Kingsmill,  125 

—  Duke  of  Bedford,  123,  197 

—  Dutch,  127 

—  Golden  Bell,  125 

—  Great  Warley,  128 

—  H.  C.  Bowles,  128 
—  Hall  Caine,  130,  132 

—  Hamlet,  197 

—  Henry  Irving,  197 

—  Incognita,  128 

—  Lavender,  131 

—  Lemon  Queen,  128 

—  Lord  Kitchener,  128 

—  Lord  Muncaster,  123 

—  Lord  Roberts,  197 

—  Lovelace,  127 

—  Mme.  Plemp,  125 

—  May  Moon,  128 

—  Monarch,  127 

—  Moonbeam,  127 

—  Mr.  Camm,  132 

—  Mrs.  Camm,  132 

—  Olympia,  197 

—  Outpost,  128 

—  Peter  Barr,  130 

—  Plenipo,  128 

—  Poet,  127,  132 

—  Queen  Bess,  132 

—  Rhymester,  127 

—  Seagull,  127,  132 

—  Sir  Watkin,  132 

—  Solfatare,  128 


Daffodils,  Weardale  Perfection,  122, 
123 

—  White  Lady,  127 

—  White  Minor,  125,  126 

—  White  Queen,  128 

—  Whitewell,  129,  130,  197 
Dahlias,  18 

Daisy,  Blue,  278 

—  Hen  and  Chicken,  189 
Danae  Laurus,  275 
Daphne  laureola,  189 
Darwin  Tulips.     See  Tulips 
Dasylirions,  257 

Dead  Nettle,  264 
Dianthus,  5,  258 

—  Freynei,  277 

—  microlepis,  277 
Dicentra  spectabilis,  286 
Digby,  Mr.  Charles,  125 
Dillenius'  Hortus  Elthamensis,  169 
Dillwyn's     Hortus     Collinsonianus, 

225 

Diotis  maritima,  195 
Docks,  184 
Dondia,  157 
Douglasia  vitaliana,  109 
Dryas,  288 

Dracuncultts  vulgaris,  282 
Duchesne,  M.,  188,  189 
Ducie,  Lord,  179 
Dykes,  Mr.,  31,  34,  35 
Dyckias,  164 

Echinopsis,  257 

Echium,  199 

Edraianthus,  106 

Elder  trees,  180,  181,  196 

Ellacombe,     Canon,    48,     58,    148, 

171,     178,     179,     188,   207,    208, 

261, 271 
Elm,  silver,  191 
Elwes,  Mr.,  224 
Elymus  glaucus,  294 
Endymion,  289 

Epilobium  nummularifolium,  266 
Epimedium,  44,  275 

—  alpinutn,  276 

—  macranthum,  276 

—  pinnatum,  275 

—  rubrum,  276 
Erauthis  cilicica,  116 

—  hiemalis,  115 


300 


Index 


Eremurus  Bungei  praecox,  284 

—  Elwesianus,  43,  283 

—  himalaicus,  284 

—  Tubergenii,  284 
Erica  arborea,  50 

—  carnea,  172,  263 

—  hybrida,  263 

—  scoparia,  50 
Erodium  amanum,  266,  272 

—  chrysanthum,  260,  272 

—  lindavicum,  260 

—  Reichardii,  266 

—  romanum,  276 
Eryngium  agavifolium,  257 

—  Lasseauxii,  252,  257 

—  Sanguisorba,  257 

—  setra,  252,  257 
Erysimum  Allionii,  262 

—  pumilum,  288 
Eucalyptus,  12,  252,  285,  293 

—  cocci/era,  293 

—  cordata,  285 

—  Gunnii,  195 

—  obliqua,  293 

—  pulverulenta,  285 

—  urnigera,  293 

Euonymus  europaeus  atropurpureus, 
199 

—  aucubaefolius,  201 

—  japonicus,  265 
Euphorbia,  181,  200 

—  Characias,  270 

—  corollata,  269 

—  Cyparissias,  269 

—  dulcis,  292 

—  Lathyris,  269 

—  melifera,  270 

—  pilosa  major,  269 

—  polychroma,  269 

—  Wulfenii,  269 

FARRER,  Mr.,  52,  59,  105,  106, 
no,  135,  136,  140,  143,  229, 
272 

Festuca  glauca,  195 

Feverfew,  193,  196 

Flag  Irises,  222,  231 

Forbes  Watson,  43 

Foxtail  grass,  195 

Fragaria  vesca,  189 

Fraser,  Mr.  Neill,  50,  51 

Fraxinus  excelsior  nana,  182 


Fritillaria,  165,  168,  263 

—  gracilis,  168 

—  imperialis,  165,  166,  201 

—  pallidiflora,  169 

—  persica,  167 

—  pyrenaica,  167,  168 

—  Slagswaard,  167 
Frog,  the  Edible,  268 
Funkias,  201,  202 

GAILLARDIAS,  18 

Galanthus  Allenii,  47,  57.     Se«  o/so 
Snowdrops. 

—  6y^a«hn«s,  47 

—  caucasicus,  50,  54 

—  cilicicus,  48 

—  corcyrtfnsis,  45 

—  Elwesii,  47,  48,  50,  52,  56,  58, 
59 

—  flavescens,  53 

—  green,  54,  186 

—  hybrid  varieties,  57,  58 

—  Ikariae,  58,  60 

—  Imperati,  51,  58 
var.  Atkinsii,  48,  49 

—  latifolius,  57 

—  lutescens,  53 

—  m'wa/ts,  48,  50,  51,  54,  57,  59 

—  octobrcnsis,  47 

—  Olgae,  7,  45 

—  plicatus,  47,  50,  56 

—  Rachelae,  45,  46 

—  Scharlokii,  54,  55 

—  Straffan,  49,  50,  51 

—  virescens,  54 

—  Warei,  55 

—  yellow,  53,  186 

Garden,    the  author's,   9,    14,    17, 

18 

Gardener's  Garters,  201 
Garlicks,  261 
Garnault,  Ann,  15 
Gentiana  angulosa,  288 

—  brachyphylla,  108 

—  verna,  108,  278 
Geranium  atlanticum,  277 

—  ibericum,  286 

—  sylvaticum,  270 

—  tuberosum,  292 

Gerard's  Herbal,  115,  116,  117,  118, 

121,  185,  188,  214,  215,  286 
Gerbera  Jamesonii,  164 


3OI 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


Ghost  tree,  191 

Gladiolus  atroviolaceus,  232 

Globular ia,  288 

Golden  Ling,  196 

Golden  Thyme,  193,  195 

Gorse,  double,  280 

Grape  Hyacinths,  100,  101.     See 

also  Muscari 

Grasses,  variegated,  195,  197,  202 
Gravel  subsoil,  10,  11 
Grouping  of  plants,  19 
Grove,  Mr.,  105 
Guelder  Rose,  182 
Gunnera    chilensis    or    manicata, 

227 

—  scabra,  227 
Gypsophila  paniculata,  285 


Hacquetia  Epipactis,  157 

Hamamelis,  222 

Hanbury,  Sir  Thomas,  21,  163 

Haplocarpa  scaposa,  164 

Hawthorns,  180,  279,  280 

Hazels,  179,  222 

Heaths,  50.     See  also  Erica 

Hedera  conglomerates,  259,  274 

—  Helix,  175,  183 

—  poetarum,  175 
Helianthemum  libanoticum,  255 

—  lunulatum,  255 

—  umbellatum,  254 
Helichrysum  bellidioides,  256 
Helicodiceros  crinitus,  280-2 
Heliotrope,  winter,  158 
Helleborus,  9,  286 
Hemlock,  286,  287 
Hepatica,  202 

Herbaceous  plants,  variegated,  201 

Herbert,  Dean,  87 

Hermodactylus  tuberosus,  231 

Hesiod,  quoted,  2 

Hinde,  Mr.  Archer,  69 

Hollies,  254 

Hoog,  Messrs.,  83,  85 

Horse  Chestnuts,  16,  17 

House  Leeks,  10,  261 

Hyacinths,  wild,  289 

Hyacinthus  amethystinus,  268 

—  azureus,  100 

Hypericum    moserianum    tricolor, 
191 


Hypolepis  millefolium,  273 
Hypoxis  Rooperi,  164 
Iris,  21-39,  221,  et  seq, 

—  alata,  33 

—  aphylla,  230 

—  Artemis,  232 

—  bearded,  221,  232 

—  Benacensis,  230 

—  Blanche,  230 
—  Bluebeard,  230 

—  bucharica,  39 

—  Chamaeiris,  230 

—  Charon,  232 

—  dwarf,  229 

—  early,  21 

—  Edith,  229 

—  flag,  222,  231 

—  florentina,  223,  279 

—  germanica,  221,  223,  230 

—  Golden  Fleece,  229 

—  Hera,  232 

—  histrio,  33 

—  hislrioides,  31-33 

—  intermediate,  229 

—  Isis,  232 

—  Ivorine,  229 

—  Juno,  38 

—  Kaempferi,  7 

—  Kharput,  230 

—  lazica,  28 

—  Leander,  230 

-  Little  Widow,  231 

—  longipetala,  232 

—  mellita,  233 

—  method  of  picking,  25 

—  orchioides,  38 

—  ochroleuca,  250 

—  Oncocyclus,  232 

—  pallida,  191 

—  persica     stenopkylla,    or    Hel- 
dreichii,  38 

—  pseud-acorus,  197 

—  pumila,  229,  230 

—  Regelio-cyclus,  231 

—  Reichenbachii,  230 

—  reticulata  and  varieties,  30,  31, 
32,  34.  35,  37 

—  scent  of,  280 

—  sindjarensis,  38 

—  Sisyrinchium,  232 

—  spuria,  177 

—  treatment  of,  231 


302 


Index 


Iris  unguicularis  and  varieties,  6, 
7,  8,  21,  25,  27,  28,  160 

—  Vartanii,  33 

—  versicolor,  197 

Ivy,  183,  274.     See  also  Hedera 

—  bush,  175 

—  golden  fruited,  175,  270 

JACK-BY-THE-HEDGE,  194 

Jacob,  Mr.  Joseph,  129 

Jacquin's  I  cones  Plantarum  Rario- 

rum,  255 
Japanese  Garden,  the,  179,  190 

—  plants,  200 

Johnson,  editor  of  Gerard's  Herbal, 

186,  188,  215 
Judas  tree,  223 
Juniper,  263 

—  Irish,  265 
Juniperus  sinensis,  193 

LABURNUM,  181,  196,  279 
Lactuca  (Mulgedium)  alpina,  269 
Lamium  maculatum,  193,  199 

—  orvala,  264 
Larch,  16 

Lathraea  clandestina,  111-113 

—  Squamaria,  114 
Lathyrus,  269 

—  magellanicus,  102 
Laurels,  178,  183,  221 

—  Alexandrian,  275 

—  ring-leaved,  182 

Leichtlin,  Herr  Max,  54,  92,  210,  213 
Lent-lily,  119 
Lenten  Roses,  286 
Leontopodium,  5 
Leucocrinunt  montanum,  19 
Leucoium  aestivum,  60 

—  Hernandezii,  or  pulchellum,  60 

—  vernum    Vagneri,   or   carpathi- 
cum,  60 

Lewisia  parviflora,  277 

—  Hpwellii,  109 
Libertia  formosa,  26 
Ligustrum  japonicum,  265 
Lilacs,  196,  279,  280 
Lilium  Marhan,  259 

—  pardalinwn,  19 
Lily  of  the  Valley,  280 
Linaria  aequitriloba,  262 

—  alpina,  109,  277 


Linaria  Cymbalaria,  262 

—  hepaticaefolia,  262 
Linum  arboreum,  254 
Liverwort,  268 

Lotus  Tetragonolobus,  255 

Lowe,  Dr.,  98,  100,   168,   208,  211, 

264,  271,  273 
Lunatic  Asylum,  the,  177,   178,  et 

seq. 
Lungworts,  154,  199,  202.     See  also 

Pulmonaria 
Lychnis  dioica,  201 
Lyte,  120,  154 
Lynch,  Mr.,  104,  112,  163 

MAGNOLIA,  174,  176,  190 

—  conspicua,  176 

—  Lennei,  176 

—  stellata,  170,  270 
Mahaffy,  Prof.,  46 
Malby,  Mr.,  106,  108 
Mammillaria,  163 

Mandr agora  autumnalis,    150,    151, 
152 

—  officinarum,  150,  271 
Mandrake.     See  Mandragora 
March  winds,  149,  et  seq. 
Markings,  variegated,  199 
Marret's  Pinax,  188 
Masters,  Dr.,  188,  189 
Maund's  Botanic  Garden,  214 
Maw,  Mr.  George,  83,  85,  93 
Meadow  saffron,  68,  69 
Meadowsweet,  196 
Meconopsis  cambrica,  258 

—  heterophylla,  254 
Melville,  Mr.,  51,  59 
Mentha  Requienii,  266 

—  rotundifolia,  201 
Merendera  Bulbocodium,  no 

—  caucasica,  no 

—  sobolifera,  no 
Mesembryanthemum  linguaeforme, 

164 

—  uncinatum,  164 
Mice,  as  pests,  78 
Milk  Thistle,  199 
Miller,  on  Crocuses,  87 
Miscanthus,  149 
Molinia  coerulea,  202 

"  Moraine  "  beds,  46,  104-110,  254, 
277 


303 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


Moths  as  pests,  46,  60 
Mountain  Ash,  196 
Moy,  Mr.  Polman,  129 
Muehlenbeckia,  256 
Mugwort,  20 1 
Mulberry,  279 

Muscari,  272.  See  also  Grape 
Hyacinth 

—  botry aides,  100,  101 

NARCISSUS,  application  of  name, 
117.  For  varieties  see  under 
Daffodils 

—  Barrii  conspicuus,  132 

—  citrinus,  126 

—  cyclamineus,  126 

—  dubius,  127 

—  juncifolius,  126 

—  Leedsii,  127,  128 

—  minicycla,  126 

—  minimus,  126 

—  muticus,  125 

—  poeticus,  121 

—  triandrus,  126,  127 

—  Tazetta,  7 

Nectar  oscordum  siculum,  261 
New  River,  12,  13,  221,  253 
New   Zealand   plants,   acclimatisa- 
tion of,  5 

Oenothera  speciosa,  271 

Old  Man,  194 

Olearia  myrsinites,  289 

—  nummularifolia,  263 

—  vergata,  var.  lineatae,  273 
Onions,  Giant,  194 
Onopordon  bracteatum,  195 
Opuntias,  162,  162,  165,  257 
Orange,  hardy,  171 

—  hybrids,  172 
Orchis  sambucina,  258 
Ornithogalum  Haussknechtii,  100 

—  libanoticum,  100,  101 
Orobanchae,  112 

—  hederae,  275 
Orvala  lamioides,  264 
Osmanthus  ilicifolius,  193 
Othonnopsis  cheirifolia,  240 
Oxalis  brasiliensis,  5,  257 

—  floribunda,  5 

—  /ofcate,  5 

—  purpurata,  or  Bowiei,  5 


Oxalis  purpurea,  257 

—  vespertillionis,  5 

Pachysandra  terminates,  200 
Palms,  282 

Pansies,  tufted,  280,  293 
Papaver  rhoeticum,  108 
Parkinson's    Paradisus,    117,    118, 

119,  121,  186,  187 
Parnassia  palustris,  109 
Paul,  Mr.  George,  260 
Pax  and  Knuth,  109,  140,  142,  143, 

144 

Peach,  purple-leaved,  198 
Pergola  garden,  128,  288,  291 
Petasites  japonica,  159 

—  nivea,  158 

—  palmata,  159 
Phalaris  arundinacea,  201 
Philadelphus,  182 

—  coronaria,  201 
Phlox,  19,  292 

—  divaricata,  var.  canadensis,  258 
Phuopsis  stylosa,  166 

Picea  pungens  glauca,  195 
Pines,  dwarf,  265 

—  Scots,  222 

—  Weymouth,  178,  179 
Pinwill,  Capt.,  156,  196 
Plantago  argentea,  184 

—  asiatica,  185 

—  cynops,  184 

—  graminifolia,  185 

—  major,  185,  186 

—  media,  185,  186 

—  nivalis,  185 

—  rose,  185,  1 86 
Plantains.     See  Plantago 
Plum,  purple,  160,  198 
Poa  alpina,  187 
Podophyllum,  273 

Po5,  Mr.  Bennet,  126 
Poiret's  Voyage  en  Barbarie,  28 
Polemonium  coeruleum,  191 
Poppies,  Welsh,  175,  258,  270 
Potentillas,  258 
Primulas,  4,  134-148 

—  acaulis,  143,  144 

—  anisiaca,  143 

—  Auricula,    4,    136,    137,    138, 
258 

—  Bowlesii,  107,  140 


304 


Index 


Primula,  Cashmiriana,  134 

—  Cockburniana,  147 

—  cortusoides,  144 

—  Dumoulinii,  136 

—  elatior,  143 

—  Facchinii,  136 

—  frondosa,  109,  140,  141 

—  glutinosa,  135,  137,  139 

—  hybrids,  136,  139,  143,  148 

—  integrifolia,  278 

—  japonica,  146 

—  Juliae,  141 

—  Juribella,  137 

—  Knuthiana,  141 

—  longiflora,  136,  137,  138,  139 

—  marginata,  134,  258 

—  megaseaefolia,  134 

—  minima,  4,  136,  139 

—  Mrs.  Berkeley,  147 

—  Mrs.  Hall  Walker,  135 

—  oenensis,  136,  138 

—  officinalis,  143 

—  pedemontana,  4,  107,  139,  278 

—  pulverulenta,  146 

—  rosea,  134 

—  SibthoYpei  Pax,  144 

—  Sieboldii,  145 

—  spectabilis,  135,  138,  139 

—  treatment  of,  137 

—  tyrolensis,  136,  137,  139 

—  Unique  Improved,  148 

—  Veitchii,  145 

—  viscosa,  107 
Prickly  Pears,  164,  257 
Primroses,  double,  142 

—  green,  189 

—  purple  and  lilac,  144 
Privet,  178 

Prunus  Amygdalus  nanus,  272 

—  cerasifera     atropurpurea,    160, 
198 

—  laurocerasus  angustifolius,  183 

—  Pissardii,  160,  287 

—  —  var.  moseri,  160 
Ptelia  trifoliata,  196 
Pulmonaria,  154,  202 

—  arvernensis,  156,  157 

—  azurea  or  angustifolia,  155 

—  grandiflora,  156 

—  Mawson's  Blue,  156 

—  rubra,  155 

—  saccharata,  155 


Pulmonaria,  white,  156 
Purple-leaved  plants  and  trees,  198, 
222 

—  Plum,  198 
Puschkinia  scilloides,  101 
Pyrus  coronaria,  fl.  pi.,  192 

—  M alus  floribunda,  222 
Pyrethrum  Parthenium,  196 

Rafflesia  Arnoldii,  123 
Ranunculus,  5 

—  amplexicaulis  major,  278 

—  ficaria,  154 

—  Lingua,  268 

—  Lyalli,  219 

—  nyssanus,  258 

—  pyrenaeus,  278 
Rhamnus  Frangula,  182 
Rhodostachys,  164 
7?j'fces  cruenta,  292 

—  sanguineum,  196 

—  speciosus,  288 
Ribwort,  185 
Riccia  fluitans,  268 
Richardia  albo-maculata,  200 
Ring-leaved  laurel,  182 

—  willow,  182 
Robb,  Mrs.,  142,  144 
Robinia  Pseudacacia,  196 

Rock  garden,  the,  108,  252  e*  5«j. 
/?05a  altaica,  270 

—  hispida,  270 

—  indica,  273 

—  laevigata  Anemone,  129 

—  vubrifolia,  273 

—  rugosa,  200 

—  sericea,  273 

—  Wt'c/zwraiawa,  240 

—  Willmottiae,  193 
Rose  garden,  the,  290 

—  plantains,  185,  186 

Royal  National  Tulip  Society,  248 
Rubus  bifloYUs,  193 

—  deliciosus,  271 

—  tibetanus,  193 
Rue,  silver-leaved,  258 
Rumex  flexuosus,  184 

—  pulcher,  184 

—  scutatus,  184 
Ruscus  aculeatus,  183 

—  hypoglossum,  184 
jRwta  graveolens,  201 


305 


My   Garden  in  Spring 


SAFFRON,  68,  69,  74 
Salix  babylonica,  224,  226 

—  herbacea,  265 

—  lanata,  265 

—  reticulata,  265 
Salvia  argentea,  195 

—  splendens,  288 

Sow&wctts  racemosa  plumosa  aurea, 

196 

Sanders,  Mr.,  53 
Sanguinaria,  273 

—  canadensiSy  169 
Santolina  incana,  193,  194 
Saponaria  lutea,  106 
Saxifraga,  104,  258,  266 

—  Burseriana,  266 

—  Elizabethae,  266 

—  oppositifolia,  266 

—  peltata,  273 

—  retusa,  266 

—  rotundifolia,  146 

—  Salomonii,  266 

—  sancta,  266 

—  sarmentosa,  258 

—  Taygetea,  266 

—  tenella,  266 

Scents  of  spring  flowers,  6,  7,  280 
Scilla  autumnalis,  6 

—  bifolia,  95,  96,  98,  202 

—  festalis,  289 

—  hispanica,  289 

—  nutans  delicata,  289 

—  sibirica,  99,  100 

—  striped,  101 

—  twna,  6 

Scolymus  hispanicus,  199 
Scirpus  lacustris,  228 
Scrophularia  aquatica,  201 
Sedge,  Fen,  61 

Sedum  pilosum,  18 

—  spathulatum,  18 
Seed  envelopes,  16 
Sempervivum  Comollei,  261 

—  rubicundwn,  261 
Senecio  incanus,  278 

—  tropaeolioides,  164 
Seseli  gummiferum,  195 
Shrubs,  178 

—  dwarf,  265 

—  variegated,  191,  200 
Silene  acaulis,  277 
Sisymbrium  Alliaria,  194 


Sloe,  purple,  199 

Slugs,  as  pests,  103,  157 

Smith,  Mr.,  of  Newry,  13,  74,  214 

Snake's  Head,  168.     See  Fritillaria 

Snails,  water,  268 

Snowdrops,   7,   40,   272.     See  Ga/- 


306 


—  autumn,  44 

—  bulb  of,  41 

—  green,  54,  186 

—  hybridisation  of,  56 

—  Straffan,  49,  50,  56 

—  treatment  of,  41 

—  yellow,  53,  186 
Solanum  crispum,  291 
Soldanella,  4,  109 

—  montana,  146 

South  African  plants,  5,  164 

—  American  plants,  5 
Sparrows,  24,  25,  160 
Spiraea  Thunbergii,  267 
Sprenger,  Herr,  28,  259 
Spring,  date  of  commencement,  i 
Spring  Snowflake,  60 

Spruce  firs,  265 

Spurges,  269,  270 

Squill,  101.     See  Scilla. 

Stork's  Bill,  261 

Strawberries,  double  flowered,  189 

—  one-leaved,  189 

—  Plymouth,  187 
Suaeda  fruticosa,  195 
Succulent  plants,  162,  257 
Sundermann,  Herr,  141 
Sycamores,  16 
Symphytum  asperrimum,  293 

—  causasicum,  294 

Tamarix  tetandra,  274 
Taxodium  distichum,  15 
Thalictrum,  270 

—  aquilegifolium,  287 

—  glaucum,  197 

—  "  Illuminator,"  287 
Thaspium  aurewn,  293 
Thistles,  variegated,  199 
Thyme,  Golden,  195 
Toadflax,  262.     See  Linaria 
Tom  Tiddler's  ground,  191  et  seq. 
Tools,      author's     gardening,     66, 

97 
Toothwort,  111-113 


Index 


Tracliycarpus  excelsus,  282 
Tree  Potato,  292 
Trees,  dwarf,  265 
Trillium,  19,  273 

—  grandiflorum,  259 
Tulipa  acuminata,  243 

—  Albion,  249 

—  Annie  Macgregor,  246,  247 

—  Batalinii,  237,  238 

—  Bittietiana  "  Sunset,"  240 

—  Bishop,  198,  249 

—  Bizarre,  248 

—  Bleu  aimable,  198 

—  Breeders,  246 

—  Bybloemen,  246,  247 

—  Carnation,  249 

—  Chinese,  243 

—  Clara  Butt,  241,  288 

—  Clusiana,  238 

—  Cottage,  234,  248 

—  Chapeau  de  Cardinal,  236 

—  Darwin,    198,    223,    234,    240, 
241,  245,  248,  249,  292 

—  dasystemon,  237 

—  Don  Pedro,  248 

—  Ellen  Willmott,  197 
—  English,  234,  245,  248 

—  Erguste,  198,  241,  242 

—  Europe,  198,  250 

—  Faust,  198,  250 

—  Fosteriana,  239 

—  Fra  Angelico,  198 

—  Franz  Hals,  198 

—  fulgens,  250 

—  Gesneriana,  240,  241,  243 

—  Golden  Spire,  197 

—  Grand  Monarque,  198 

—  green,  249 

—  Greuze,  198 

—  Inglescombe  Yellow,  197 

—  Isis,  249 

—  Ixioides,  197 

—  Jaune  d'oeuf,  197 

—  John  Ruskin,  248 

—  Kaufmanniana,  237 

—  King  Harold,  241 

—  Lady,  238 

—  La  Merveille,  240 

—  La  Noire,  198,  241,  249 

—  Laurentia,  241,  243 

—  linifolia,  237,  238 

—  L' Innocence,  249 


Tulipa,  Louis  XIV,  248 
-  Mabel,  246 

—  Margaret,  249 

— •  May-flowering,  234 

—  Maximowiczii,  237 

—  Mrs.  Farcombe  Sanders,  240 

—  Mrs.  Moon,  197 

—  Nigrette,  249 

—  oculus  solis,  239 

—  Parisian  Beauty,  241 

—  Philippe  de  Comines,  241 

—  Picotee,  249 

—  praecox,  239 

—  praestans,  238 

—  Primrose  Beauty,  197 

—  primulina,  238 

—  purple  and  lavender,  198 

—  Purple  Perfection,  198 

—  Rembrandt,  249 

—  vetroflexa,  241 

—  Rosalind,  243 

—  rose,  246 

—  Sir  Harry,  249 

—  Sir  Joseph  Paxton,  248 

—  Solfatare,  197 

—  Sprengeri,  239 

—  stellata,  238 

—  Striped  Beauty,  249 

—  Sultan,  198 

—  Velvet  King,  198 

—  Vespuccio,  198 

—  viridiflora,  249 

—  Walter  T.  Ware,  248 

—  White  Swan,  236 

—  yellow,  197 

—  Yellow  Prince,  197,  236 

—  Yellow  Rose,  197 

—  Zomerschoon,  250 

—  Zulu,  198 

Turner,  quoted,  118,  120,  154 
Tussilago  Far  far  a,  159 

UMBERTO,  Bishop,  story  of,  204 
Underground  watering,  105 

VARIEGATED  plants  and  shrubs, 

191,  199 

Van  Tubergen,  Mr.,  83,  208 
Van  Waveren,  Mr.,  236 
Veronica  circaeoides,  262 

—  repens,  266 

—  teucrium,  196 


307 


My  Garden  in  Spring 


Viburnum,  182 

—  bullatum,  259 

—  lantana  foliis  punctatis,  182 

—  Opulus,  182 
Vine  pergola,  291 
Violas,  118 

—  biflora,  264 

—  bosniaca,  19,  108,  256 

—  Bowies'  Black,  271 

—  calcarata,  256 

—  canina,  264 

—  cornuta,  196 

—  cucullata,  264 

—  gracilis,  202,  259,  260 

—  Munbyana,  260 

—  on  rock  garden,  264 

—  pubescens,  264 

—  sagittata,  264 

—  sorora,  264 

—  sweet,  20 1 

—  tricolor,  271 
Vitis  armata,  292 

Wahlenbergia  gvacilis,  19 
Water  lilies,  268 


Watering  of  garden,  12 

—  underground,  107 
Wayfaring  tree,  182 
Weigela  rosea,  201 
Weymouth  pines,  178 
Welsh  Poppy,  175,  258,  270 
Wilks,  Mr.,  47 

Willow,  dwarf,  265 

—  ring-leaved,  182 

—  weeping,  223-6 
Wistaria,  280 

—  standard,  190 
Witch  Hazel,  222 
Witch's  Broom,  180,  181 
Wollaston,  Mr.,  192 
Wolley-Dod,  Mr.,  104,  143,  264 
Wood  Anemones,  18,  216 
Wooster's  Alpine  Plants,  214 

Xanthorhixa  apiifolia,  174 

YEWS,  14,  196,  221,  233,  234 
Yuccas,  257 

ZINNIAS,  18 


2/14 


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at  Paul's  Work,  Edinburgh 


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Return  this  material  to  the  library 

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